No Place For Scholars
by Garmonbozia
Summary: Things which are potentially in peril today: Clara. An old friend. The Universe's greatest house of learning. But The Doctor can manage all that. Yeah. Okay, so it might be a bit difficult, but... But he can totally manage, no doubt about it. Well, I say 'no doubt'. Little bit of doubt, maybe. Smidge of doubt. Don't worry, it'll be fine... he's nearly sure it'll be fine.
1. Chapter 1

"So where are we going?"

"Somewhere very exciting, Clara."

"And you're not going to be any more specific than that?"

"No."

"Why not? Should I be scared? Is exciting scary? Are you just saying 'exciting' so I'll feel better about being in mortal peril?" Oh, she's getting used to me far, _far_ too quickly. It's a little disturbing. Makes it hard to answer her. I mean, just look at her. Those big dark eyes, all glittering and _excited_ (ironically) over the idea that it might be scary.

How can I look into those eyes and say, 'Because I have no idea where we're going yet'? How, in good conscience? I can just imagine her disappointment, the way that little face would fall.

It's nobody's fault, really. I'm just not naturally a very organized person. Alright, so I make a point of tidying the console room every Monday, but the non-linear shape of my life means that Mondays can be few and far between, and then I could have a month of Mondays, and there's no tidying to do. It doesn't really count as organization. Companions just expect so much of me. 'Something amazing', they'll say, and I have to pluck something magically out of the air, even though there's too much to choose from, and my definition of 'amazing' won't necessarily match theirs and…

Look, it's stressful, alright?

But we can find out where we're going. I only went to pick her up because the Tardis had a message for me. It came up whilst I was tinkering with Raikoninck technology I picked up last week. I say, tinkering, I was trying to figure out what it's for. All I've managed to do with it (thus far, anyway) is amuse Clara for ten seconds. The moment she stepped aboard she wanted to know what the 'big melty patch' on the floor was. I just told her not to step on it, if she can help it. Don't know yet if it's dangerous or not… _Because I received a message_, yes, that's how I got onto this story.

What message? Well, loosely translated, made intelligible for humans, beneath the level of interface I and my extraordinary machine have reached after all this time together, it comes out as, 'You've Got Mail'.

I set said-Extraordinary-Machine down on a small asteroid near the July nebula. Clara, before I can warn her, rushes out the door, expecting miracles, and alien worlds, and dancing elephants and all sorts of silly, frivolous things. She sets on foot on cold blue stone and just stops.

"Doctor? Somewhere exciting? I mean, unless this big rock is hurtling towards an alien sun, I don't see how this is exciting. Is it? Hurtling towards an alien sun, I mean?"

"As much sense as it makes for you to no longer have any fear of death, I'd love it if you didn't wish for it quite so fervently."

"What do you mean, 'makes sense'?"

…I ought to fill my shoes with sugar. That way, when I keep putting my foot in my mouth with Kitty Ninelives over there, at least it'll taste nice. "Nothing. Hanging around me. It happens."

"Nearly dying? It happens a lot." I take out the sonic, set it to find a specific signal, and follow where it wants me to go. Clara is never more than a step behind. Actually, at one point, her toe drags rather painfully on the back of my ankle. I stop, and turn to her. She's just looking up, tentatively smiling, "We're going where the excitement is, now, aren't we?"

"We are going to the part of 'this big rock' that was on top when I first landed here."

"So what's there?"

I point past myself, at something just beginning to show itself over the next ridge. Clara, feeling very adventurous today, goes running on ahead. At the crest, she stops again, just as she did outside the Tardis. That's _mildly_ irritating, actually. Not because of the ingratitude, or the fact that she's in space and the year is Thirteen-Thousand-and-Something and she can still be disappointed, though those could be irritations if I was a more irritable fellow.

No, it's because I quite like what's over that ridge. She's not sharing my enthusiasm. That's what's irritating.

Here, on an asteroid in the deep time of her future, barrelling through space at thousands of miles per hour forever with no impetus to do so or to stop, there is a classic American post-box. Sorry, _mail_-box. You know. The kind that looks like a bomb shelter for a tiny man, with a flag on top to show when he's in, like at Buckingham Palace, on top of a pole.

_My_ one has a face painted on the front, with a duck's beak, and twin windmills that would paddle like duck's feet except that there's no wind in space. I'll admit it, I didn't think that one through. Mea culpa. But he's still very, very cute. And the flag is up.

"Post," I tell Clara. "Post is exciting. This letterbox is a dead drop at the end of the universe. Only some of my best friends know about it. Only very important post ever comes here. Post is always exciting."

Clara does that little smirk she does, that little toss of the head, sarcastic even before she's opened her mouth, "Got my pulse racing."

"Should I fire a laser at you while I retrieve it, would that help?" She mumbles something which I hope and pray is not, 'Might do', while I go over, grab the lovely little ducky by his beak and open the hatch.

Inside, there is one slip of heavy, very fine card. It's got a watermark and everything. Very classy. The words on it are embossed, and picked out in gold. And it begins with some of the most exciting words in the known universe.

_You are cordially invited to_… After that, it doesn't matter what it say. Soon as I see the word 'cordially' I'm one leg into the trousers of my tux, oh, yes. "Is black-tie exciting enough for you, Clara? You can borrow a dress, there's a walk-in wardrobe on the Tardis… somewhere… Think you have to go down the helter-skelter and turn left, but I'm not sure how you get back up-"

"What's it an invitation to?" She cut me off. I was thinking out directions, to help _her_ no less, and she cut me off. "Doctor? What's it an invitation to?"

She's not looking up at me this time. The big dark eyes are otherwise occupied. They are narrowed with focus, looking at something on the back of the invite. It's such good card, so thick, I can't even make out the grooves of something written there.

"An awards ceremony of some sort. Giving out honorary doctorates or something. Must be someone I know but… Black-tie, Clara. Please, try and act excited."

"Maybe you've got the exciting side of the card," she says. "I think I have the scary side."

She looks at me, finally. Slowly, tentatively, I turn the invitation over, to see what she saw. There, in spiky, childish capitals, all of different sizes and veering across the card, there is another message. She's right; it seems a lot more urgent than being invited, _cordially_ or not, to some trivial event.

'Doctor helps,' it says. It says that a couple of times, in that mess. In different directions, wherever there was a gap, a pleading kaleidoscope, it says, 'Doctor helps'.

"_Not goes here_," Clara reads aloud. "Wait, is the Tardis alright?"

"Of course she is, we just left her. Why?"

"Well, you said the Tardis translates for us, right? Doesn't that sound a little bit dodgy to you? 'Not goes here. Doctor helps.' Doesn't that sound like maybe it's a little bit…_sick_?"

At least she looks ashamed of herself when she says that. I don't mean to glower at her, but really, if she didn't hang her head at that, I'd be rather put-out indeed. Of course there's nothing wrong with the Tardis. She's never been sick a day in her life. She gets tired sometimes, yes, but only when I've run her down. Yes, I can honestly say, any off day the Tardis has ever had, I can take the sole responsibility for.

…I _can_ honestly say that, but normally I don't. Normally I don't say that, in case she hears me and thinks, 'Oh yeah' and runs off with River. Not that she'd do that to me. Not that I've had that nightmare. Couple of times. Not that I've bought her little treats like new coolant pipes and curtains for the upstairs windows as some sort of bribe to keep her from- I'll stop talking now…

Anyway, the distressed message on the back of the card hasn't been translated. Not for Clara, anyway. It was already in standard Earth English.

Well, 'standard' is the wrong word for it, perhaps.

_'Doctor helps. Not goes here. Here am being badplaces for her. Her am being frytenned. Doctor helps.'_

I know that sick, dodgy English. From that, I know who wrote that desperate message on the back of the invitation. And I will tell you very solemnly that she meant every strange and begging word.

"On a scale of one to ten, in terms of excitement, where does 'saving an old friend who can usually handle herself fairly well from some as-yet-unknown terror at a black-tie event' rank?"

As we turn back towards the Tardis, those first few steps, she has a good hard think about it. With a nod for definition, "Six."

"_I beg your pardon?!"_

* * *

[A/N - For Vilinye, who requested the reappearance of a certain somebody, and because I got bad news and needed my Doctor, and because I'm auctioning a multi-chap at the end of the month and forgot to check whether or not I can still even write DW multi-chap and because... Because of because, okay? Because of lots of becauses. I hope there's still somebody out there who'll read this and enjoy it. Much love, Sal.]


	2. Chapter 2

My absent, invitation-sending friend neglected, in her message, to tell us where to find her, so that's the first order of business. Luckily, I have everything I need to track her, right here on the invite.

The date, for instance, of the event we've been _cordially invited to_ (I'm still getting Clara to pick out a dress. What if we land in the middle of it and she's not ready? No, no, that simply wouldn't do at all), is given as May 17th, 3099.

Now, not only does that tell me that we're ten thousand years in its relative future and there should be plenty of records to mess about with, but it tells me much, much more. For instance, we're looking for a planet where English is still the primary language. Human, then, possibly a human colony given the date. They're still using the Gregorian calendar, which rules out any influence of the religious cultism that was rife at the time. They reverted to Julian. Made Christmas presents the very devil to buy…

"Tell me about this friend of yours, then," says Clara, hanging on the rail. "Maybe there's something I don't know. Maybe it _is_ more than a six on the excitement metre."

"Too right it's more than a six!" I don't mean to sulk, but, "I can't _believe_ you said six…"

"But this _other woman_ in your life, what's special about her? Does she make it exciting?"

Which makes me smile, on so many levels. Not least hearing the darling girl we are pursuing referred to as an 'other woman'. And what's special about her? Why, I could be here for days trying to explain that. But I could be here for days telling you what's special about Clara, or about anybody I've ever called a friend, or anybody who ever lived. It always makes me laugh, hearing you humans describe your heroes, calling them 'special', talking about them like you were somehow less than them. It's not true, it just isn't.

But I must admit, what made me smile widest of all, what made me turn my back to the monitor and look Clara in the eyes, what turned it into a challenge, was that last question of hers. "Exciting, Clara? Does she make it exciting? You mean aside from the fact that she would appear to be in terrible danger and went to the very outskirts of all existence to ask for my help?"

Defiant, challenging me right back, "Yeah. Aside from that."

"She had her fragile human skeleton replaced with a sort of living wood that can heal itself, has all the qualities of steel, and which can fire out of her arms in long, lethal stakes. How's that for you?"

Well, it's shut her up, at any rate. Just for a couple of seconds, but I dare say Clara looks impressed. About time too… Doctor, one; Apathy, nil. Chalk it up. "Long, lethal…" she repeats, dazed.

"Stakes, yes. Like swords, if you will."

"Like built-in swords?"

"Yes."

She realizes now how much of her composure she's given up, and straightens, clearing her throat, playing it cool. "Okay, so maybe we're up to a seven."

"All her life she never had hearing or any concept of sound, and couldn't speak. That was all given to her by an alien diplomat in New Orleans. Long story. Good story, I'll tell it to you sometime."

As I go back to the monitor, Clara chases me, right around the far side of the console. "An eight, then, fine."

She's grinning now. I prefer it when she grins. The bored pout of earlier is really not a very good look for her. Makes her look sullen. _Maybe_, I think, _I can push her straight to a ten now_. This is not a good thought for me to have. Even as I'm having it, I'm thinking to myself that it's probably not a very good thought. This is the sort of thought that leads to me saying something silly, isn't it? The sort of thought that leads to me ruining everything. I've had thoughts like this before, I'm learning to recognize them. But it seems I have yet to learn to _stop_ myself when such thoughts present themselves.

In fairness to myself, Clara doesn't help. In fact, she asks the very question I am longing to answer.

She asks, "And how did you meet her?"

"She was raised," I say, with a touch more glee than is probably advisable, my grin mimicking hers, leaning across the console like two hyperactive children to giggle at each other, "By one of my most formidable enemies, and all her life was trained to come and kill me."

Clara stops grinning. Like I snapped my fingers and it all just went out of her. She stops grinning. Stops even _smiling_. All expression falls from her face and she stares blankly across at me. She stands straight off the console, leaning back with her arms folded, lips parted, and in those big dark eyes that wanted so much to be excited I see only a trembling, very slight fear.

"I… Doctor, you're joking, aren't you?"

Told you it was one of those bloody stupid thoughts. "…_Yes_?"

"You're not. That was true. What you just told me, that was true." Ahem… Time for me to go and check those readings, I think. You know, the readings, the important ones, on the other side of the console.

Clara has only to strafe two steps to look me in the eye again. However much I try to dodge, she never has to go very far. Note to self, must have a word with the Tardis. Next time she redecorates herself, we could think about breaking the console room into lots of small compartments, with lockable doors, so that if one ever wanted to hide (or wanted the floor to open up and swallow one), that would be possible. This _round_ thing, it's just not working out anymore.

"Doctor? Just confirm for me that you just looked me in the eye and said 'Clara, we're off to save someone who is very scared, who I first met when she came here to murder me.'"

"It's not what you think."

"Oh, really?!"

I don't mean to, it's purely instinctual, but I lift up my arms, shielding my face as if fending off a real, physical attack. "She's really nice." And the Tardis gives a ding, like a microwave bell, to show that she's found her. I swing the monitor around to show Clara the picture it's found. "Look," I tell her. "Her name is Jessica."

Shock and revulsion register on Clara's face. That's not right. Shock and revulsion are what I was trying to take _off_ Clara's face, not make them worse. I don't understand. I start around the console, to the monitor, to see what she sees. It doesn't make sense. Jessica usually turns out very well in photographs, very sweet, very pure features, big beaming smile, that sort of thing.

Then I'm standing behind Clara, and I realize that the best, most factual picture the Tardis could find was not one of the happy smiley ones. No, it was one of the sort of picture _nobody_ looks good in. You could spend all day getting ready for this particular photograph and you're still going to come out of it looking like a bedraggled, scheming criminal. It's a Justice Department mug shot, from a prison record, a few months spent in Stormcage.

But it's not how it looks.

Clara turns on her heel, staring at me. I point past her at the screen. A stupid, high-pitched echo, "It's not what you think!"

"What are you getting me into?!"

"A really nice cocktail dress, hopefully!" She draws back, somewhere between offended and confused. I pull the invitation out of my pocket, "Black tie?"

She snatches it down out of my hand. "If you think I'm going to some daft ball with you and your murderer mate, you've got another thing coming, sunshine!"

"She's _not_ a murderer!" I cry in defence of an absent friend, "Well, I suppose technically-"

"_Aha_!"

"But it wasn't her fault. I don't mean to be insulting, Clara, but you don't know the whole story." She falters, bristling. Looking very much as though I've insulted her, but that doesn't count, because I made it clear that this was not my intention. "Look, I've got a lock on her now. Come with me at least that far. We'll find out what the danger is, and you can meet her, and if you're still not happy, I'll take you home."

Clara sighs. She turns away from me, walking to the railing. She looks away at the empty air between herself and the wall as if she can see everything she needs to from there. "I never know what to make of you," she says. "I mean, you're obviously completely insane, that much is clear. But it's like… one minute you just love the universe and everything in it so much and the next… The next you're telling me you're friends with a murderer."

Against my better judgement, I find myself nodding along as she talks. "Doesn't make _any_ sense at all, does it?"

Clara looks at me over her shoulder, shakes her head just once, very slowly. "Nope."

"I could take you home now, if you want."

She's looking at something, round on the far side of herself. I can't see what. She looks down at it for a long time, studying, lost in deep thought. I give her all the time she could need. When she turns around, she's shaking her head again. Says again, "Nope."

One of her hands, she sets briefly over mine on the console. Just for a second, just long enough to squeeze. And I know, from hanging around humans (which, have you noticed?, I do quite a bit), that this would usually be a gesture of comfort. Now, I don't need to be comforted, so I can only assume this is Clara's way of finding that feeling

Her other hand sets down what she was looking at; the invitation, a little crumpled where she grabbed it from me. But she wasn't looking at the gold, embossed letters, wasn't looking at the exciting side.

She was looking at the uneven scrawl on the back. What she called the scary side. The _scared_ side.

"Doctor helps," she reads, still looking at it.

I pick up that hand of hers and put it on the launch lever. She cuts her eyes at me, surprised, just the edge of a smile creeping back through, asking if I'm sure. I nod her on.

With one great yank she ratchets back the pull and everything jolts. Off again. In search of exciting, and scary, and almost guaranteed to get both.


	3. Chapter 3

Our destination, as it turns out, is an old haunt of mine. This human-built space station was a favourite stop-off for the Timelords, back when you could still refer to us in the plural like that. Wherever we were going, wherever we were coming from, we knew we'd be welcome to rest-slash-refuel-slash-well, _hide_, here. It is, you see, the universe's largest and most prestigious institute of higher learning, the University of Wise Star. You see then, quite naturally, why _we_ were welcome there above all others. I got several of my various qualifications here, including my PhD in mixology.

Wise Star pride themselves on their diversity as much as their acumen.

We land in the grounds. _I_ control that lever, thank you very much. Companions don't land Tardises. That's a rule. I forget which number of a rule it is, but it's definitely a rule. If it's not, I'm making it one, as of now, because no companion has ever landed a Tardis in a way that wasn't very painful for everyone on board. _Mine_, on the other hand, is a good landing, and very precise. It gives us a good position on the quadrangle and stops us directly facing the imposing façade of the main building.

Seven-hundred-odd years of this running and piloting business, I'm still working on my landings. No wonder this place love to heap qualifications on me; I just never stop learning.

Clara, for the first time today, has her breath taking away with good cause. Wise Star's central building is twelve stories of futuristic glass, fretted all over with intricately wrought Victorian iron. It is the whole space station's first attempt, it's most determined statement, that this would be the best of humanity, brought out into space.

The quad itself is hiving with human and alien alike, the greatest academic talent in all the universe, some of them hundreds of thousands of lightyears from home, all rushing between classes or reading in the corners or hanging off each other's smoochy faces…

I'll tell you this, and we'll pretend it doesn't count as any sort of foreknowledge – university never changes. Yes, it might be a big building in the middle of the wild black yonder but really, the experience, everything that makes it up, that never changes.

In all of this crowd, I pick out one who walks with his head down, carrying three folders full to bursting under his arm, wearing a security pass clipped to his trousers; a member of staff.

"Excuse me," I say to him, "We're looking for a girl, about yay high, dark hair, blue eyes, _very _blue eyes, talks like this-" At that, I present him with the scary side of the invitation. He had been staring at me, somewhere between utter incomprehension and mild annoyance that I've gotten in his way. He takes one look, one _glance_, and breathes in deep. He couldn't even have read the words. He's just looked at how they're written and, _Ah_, he is saying, without a word. He shoots his cuffs, shaking a few pages loose from the folders. Clara stoops to gather them up at the same time as him. I think their eyes meet, because after that he becomes much more helpful.

Well done, Clara.

"You and half the campus," he says, in answer to me.

"Why?" Clara cuts in, far too quickly, "What's she done?"

With a measured calm, quite slowly, I turn my head to look at her. This is nothing to do with shock or distaste or anything like that. She looks back me from the corner of her eye and just shrugs, like a naughty… well, student, I suppose.

"Done?" our new guide says. He seems a little baffled. I can tell because he tucks in his chin. He only realizes he's done this when his heavy spectacles slide down his nose and he has to push them back.

Humans spreading out across the universe, no problem. University in space, fine. Correcting a strong case of myopia, completely off the cards.

"Well," Clara fumbles, "If everybody's looking for her, she must have done something, right?"

"Wrong," I tell her. Maybe a little more sharply than I need to.

"They're looking for her because she's gone _missing_," the academic corrects. He looks Clara very sincerely in the eye when he says it, as if he pities her and her cynical deduction. I can only conclude that Clara knows a little more about our quarry's history than he does. "Ever since they announced the awards, no one's seen the slightest trace of her."

He wipes an inky hand on his trousers. It does nothing to remove the ink, but it makes him feel better about holding it out, first to Clara, then to me. "Do you know Jessica then?" he asks, as we shake by turns.

In the same moment, Clara says 'No' and I say 'Yes.'

I show him the invitation again. "That's her handwriting, isn't it?"

"Oh yes," and he shoves his glasses back to the bridge of his nose once more. "I've marked enough of her papers to know. And I've taken every painkiller known to man fighting the headaches from it." He then introduces himself with the most excellent moniker of, "Professor Dooblevay Carling. I teach Peace Studies."

Peace Studies, of all things! Have you ever heard of such a thoroughly lovely discipline? My kind of man, let me tell you. A brave soul, no doubt, for all his immediate nervousness. I bet if the world was ending he'd be right there at the diplomacy talks, fighting for the continuation of existence. My kind of man indeed.

My kind of man, poor gent, is starting to look a little offended. It's not me, it's Clara. She looks confused. I wish I could tell the Professor, it's nothing to do with him. She just can't make it balance in her head. Here's this lovely, deferent sort of gent, who says Jessica's been writing him papers on peace studies. And here's me, of course, standing next to her, and I told her just the opposite.

She doesn't know the whole story. I wish I could explain. See, this is what happens; I open my mouth, say something stupid, and afterward I spend a lot of time wishing impossible wishes. Maybe I should sit in on a few classes of peace studies while we're here.

"Come to my office," says Professor Carling. "Maybe we can come up with something if we only knock our heads together."

"Sounds painful," Clara says. That arch little eye-roll again. She reminds me of River when she does that. It can be rather disconcerting, you know.

"_Sounds_," I correct, and I put my arm around her shoulders, her neck right in the crook of my elbow, "like a very good plan, Professor. Lead on."

Clara prises herself out of my grip and skips a step ahead, walking right next to our guide. He blushes. She hardly seems to notice, makes no adjustment to her usual, forward manner, nor any adjustment whatever to her intended question. She just asks him, straight off, right out, "So, what's the point of _peace_ studies then? Any history class I ever stayed awake for was about one or another war."

"Well, past wars _are_ a big part of the subject," he admits. "But the pursuit of peace is about analysing the causes, about how we can keep it from ever happening again. The other side, then, is naturally the study of diplomacy, and negotiation. When we find ourselves in a regrettable situation, we must be better equipped to get ourselves out of it. That way we can stop blowing up planets and get on with living on them."

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, just listen to him! Isn't that just the very loveliest explanation of a passionate professorship you ever heard? And to think, this is the man who has the stewardship of my dear little Jessica these days! Why, I could never have wished for better.

Hm? Oh, 'my'? Yes, of course she's _mine_. I feel thoroughly responsible for the girl, as I do for each and every of the friends who have travelled with me for any length of time. And when it comes to this particular friend, I have an especially sharp itch of responsibility.

I suppose it's another one of those long stories. The quick version is, no matter how awful her life was before she met me, it was consistent. It was all she knew. I took all of that away and gave her the harsh truth. It all happened very quickly. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, what terrible torments you take someone out of, that sort of change is traumatic. Whatever Jessica is now, I created it. Naturally, I feel responsible.

And a little bit proud, actually, now that I can say she has elected to study the art of peace under this most excellent Professor Dooblevay Carling. I'm writing his name down later on. I'm putting him in the diary to tell River about. She'll be as chuffed as I am.

Just a quick question to him, maybe pushing my luck a little bit, can't resist, "And she's a good student of yours, then?"

Without hesitation, "She's my best student."

I look round at Clara. I am trying hard not to smirk, which counts for something, even if I'm not doing very well at it. "See? I told you she was nice."

"Well, Doctor," she retorts, not giving in, "From what you described I would have expected to find her in the _middle_ of war, rather than at either end of it."

Admonishing, "_Clara_! I would have thought you'd have known better by now. Beginning, middle and end are awfully linear terms. It's really very bad form. I must _insist_ that you never use them again."

* * *

[at Joshua - I had no idea! I don't have Facebook or I'd go and thank these lovely people! That's an incredible sort of support, and I'm honoured and very, very flattered. As it is, I'll just say thank you here and hope somebody catches it. Oh, and while I'm in gratitude-mode, thanks to everybody who's already faved, followed, reviewed, whatever, for welcoming me back to the WhoFold so easily. You lovely, lovely people. - Hearts, Sal.]


	4. Chapter 4

Carling's office is testimony to his chosen art; an incredibly peaceful place. It is sparse, and uncluttered. One wall is lined with books, but these are neatly ordered and all in good condition. He has plants drooping off old fashioned brass stands, and two goldfish in a glass bowl on his desk.

Excuse me very briefly, but there's something I have to do before I continue.

_By the soul of great Rassilon, in the spirit of my fallen brethren and by the good graces of their memory, may no terrible thing come to pass, and may I leave here in such a way that I am welcome to come back any time and have tea here, because I like tea and I like this office and I like the Professor._

There. Sorry for the interlude. One just doesn't come across this sort of place every day. A quick little prayer is not unwarranted when it comes to protecting it.

Carling, by the way, only has green tea or camomile tea. He avoids caffeine and all other stimulants. They affect his ineffable balance. When he drinks true tea, he says, he gets very self-conscious about adjusting his glasses. That's when he knows he's crossed a line.

"You know," I tell him, ignoring a filthy and _totally_ unnecessary look from Clara, "I'm so glad to have met you. Not least because you're exactly what Jessica needed, at least when she left my company."

Carling is sitting behind his desk, comfortable, slunk low in his cushioned chair. "Yes. I could sense that. There's a violence in her she works very hard to bind up. That's why I've been so worried since she… _took off_."

"Then you don't suspect kidnap or coercion?"

Carling looks scandalised, downright frightened. He sits a little straighter, "Dear God, it hadn't even crossed my mind."

"Tell me what happened," I say to him. When one is sipping freshly brewed green tea, it's difficult to get too wound up, especially with no evidence. I'll let him tell it to me and then if there's anything to get wound up about, then I'll be bothered with it.

But before he can say a word, there's a choke and a splutter, just at my shoulder. Clara is leaning on the windowsill, and has just taken her first unguarded sip of green tea. She coughs, mutter, "Oh, no. No. Not good. No." And yet she is as delicate and polite as a spinster aunt when she puts the cup and saucer down on the sill. Less polite when she edges them as far away from her as they'll go, like the source of some noxious gas.

To Carling, as apologetically as I can, "She's Old Earth British; there's only one tea they can drink. It's a species thing."

He half-laughs, "It's quite alright, Miss Oswald. It's not for everyone." See that? Perfect equilibrium, cultural understanding; this is the basis of all good interplanetary relations. I could teach Peace Studies, y'know, I'd have _no_ trouble. "To answer your question, Doctor, I don't really know that there's anything to tell. I've been over this a hundred times, with the dean, with campus security… With myself, more than anything. Always asking if I did something wrong, or missed something important. But I can't think of a single factor that was out of the ordinary…"

"Oh, just tell me all of it," I say, with a wave of one hand, "I'll do the noticing."

"Well, it was last Tuesday. Nine days ago, now. Nine days is a long time, isn't it, Doctor? At any rate, I gave a lecture on negotiations with societies which privilege war as a lifestyle, set an assignment on analysing Sontaran techniques… The usual. After the lecture I asked Jessica to stay behind. A paper she… _scrawled_ on mid-battle decision-making, a case-study of _you,_ I believe, it's won an award. Here at the university, just a small, internal honour, but we do like to make a big deal of our best and brightest. It's a formal dinner and prize-giving, that sort of thing. She seemed very happy about it. Nothing to worry about, I thought."

"Wait a minute," Clara mumbles. For a moment, I wonder if she's come to the same conclusion that I have. She might be about to say something of incredible depth and insight. But no; I am the only one who has come to a conclusion of incredible depth and insight. _Clara_ says, "_That's _the big event with the gilded invite? A uni essay prize?"

I snap round a little quicker than is probably sane, "Black tie, Miss Oswald, is black tie, no matter what the occasion, and as good as I feel in my tux, you could have felt in any number of LBDs left behind and collected in my Tardis."

"If we can't find her before the ceremony it'll hardly be a problem. You'll have no reason to attend."

"What!?" I'm sorry; all I heard there was the threat to my opportunity to wear a tux, and it was a small jolt to at least one of my hearts. "Oh, Jessica? Well, we're halfway to finding her already, now that we know why she's hiding." Both of them are staring at me. I stare back, turning my head between them. "You'll kick yourselves when I tell you. Firstly, though, Professor, does the campus security detail have any record of her leaving the planet?"

"No."

"Good, then she hasn't gone far. And she'll be easy enough to locate. I'll just tune the sonic to seek out that skeleton of hers."

Well, that's not _exactly_ true. The stuff her skeleton is made of is too close kin to wood for the sonic to be of any bloody use, and yes, that's still a sore subject, thank you… But there's an element in it, not unique, but rare enough to help.

Carling leans forward a little more. In his very best diplomat's hush, "Doctor, I'm sorry to tell you, whatever species she is, there's bound to be at least another one on campus. You could end up on a wild goose chase."

"Not with this one," I tell him, while the sonic is settling on the setting, "It's something of a custom job."

"If you don't mind my saying, I used to think I knew my own pupil quite well. You've been here all of twenty minutes and I'm not sure anymore."

From the corner of my eye, I see Clara slipping down from the windowsill, moving along to the wall behind the desk. She is aligning herself with him, and with his veiled, coded question. Whatever answer I give, she wants to watch my reaction, in total, every twitch of it. It is for this reason and this reason only that I opt for the evasive, "No, I don't mind you saying at all."

Carling, however, does not want to take the hint. Even with Clara right next to him (Clara is little, by human standards, but by hint standards she is of the large and distracting sort and quite literally dressed in red right next to him) he presses on, "What I mean to ask… is there something I've missed? Something I should have known?"

Oh, not really. Not much. A young girl by the name of Jessica Apple. Age indeterminate, since the skeletal changeover happened before the height of puberty; she neither grows nor ages properly. The violence he could 'sense' in her is completely artificial, trained into her. Oh, and I said before, didn't I? I said when I was telling Clara, how speech is a relatively new thing for her?

And this man, this sweet, gentle soul, he wanted to give her an award. She walked away from him happy and bright, awfully pleased with herself, I'd wager.

But out there somewhere on this campus is a person who then ruined everything. They probably didn't do it out of cruelty. They probably didn't mean to. But they said one word and Carling's best student, this warlike peacemaker, for all her incredible strength, she fled. She's been in hiding for more than a week, and will stay hidden until after the ceremony, except that I'm going to find her, and all of this because of one ill-chosen word.

That's the thing about words. Professor Carling will know all about this. They're so powerful. And I don't mean big, filibustering speeches. I don't mean calls to arms and rallying cries. I don't mean the poetry of the warmonger or the subtle rhetoric of those that would end such tyrannies. I don't mean anything of that.

I mean that most awful truth, that no matter what you say, there can be just one word wrong, and everything collapses around it. Context is everything. Some sweet and singular person with just the right trauma in their history, you say one word, and it's all, all over.

And that word could be as simple as-

Sorry, I'll finish that later. Right now, the claws of the sonic have popped open, and the beacon is gently pulsing. As politely as I can without actually asking him anything, I commandeer the computer station on the corner of Carling's desk and try and match the signal I've got to a map of the campus.

"There," I say, pointing. "What's this building?"

"But we searched there," he murmurs. "That was the first place we searched."


	5. Chapter 5

When you are a universal university with a completely open admissions policy (well, certain species have been asked to stay away, but honestly, Daleks and Cybermen? Not big educators), things can tend to get a little bit heated. Understandably then, the gym is set a little bit back from the other buildings. Four floors of training space and equipment aimed at every race you care to name. Salt and fresh water pools, ionically cleansed flight rooms, you name it, they've got it. Plenty of little compartments, much like the sort I would like for my next console room please?

…Maybe not. Plenty of places to hide, that's what I mean.

I catch Clara looking through the little glass porthole in a nearby door. Looking a bit stunned again. She says, distantly, to Carling rather than me, "And this is where this Jessica person hangs around, is it?"

So I peer over her shoulder and look in. And yes, there are punches and kicks being thrown in that room, and a few individuals being thrown around too. She thinks she's looking at some sort of offensive combat training, undoubtedly. "Clara, you're getting to be paranoid. That is a perfectly innocent self-defence class." At which, as if undercutting my point was their only drive in life, a tentacle slaps to the glass, as a buffer for the face which swiftly follows. I take her by the shoulders and guide her gently away. "For that particular species, anyway. If you had tentacles you'd be good at throwing too."

"This way," Carling smiles, gently, leading off down the hall.

The space he takes us too is a much less aggressive one. Much more recognizable for Clara; something like your standard Earth boxing gym. Carling, peaceable soul that he is, looks a little uncomfortable. Out of place too. I don't know if I've mentioned already, but he's a rather natty dresser. Over his neat checked shirt and beautifully patterned jumper, he wears a tweed jacket which I for one think is really very smart. It's just that these aren't the surrounding for it. If he only had a bit more confidence, if he could straighten his shoulders and stop fiddling with his buttons, he'd be able to carry it off a bit better. Like me. He could stand like me. Then he'd look alright.

I don't know, maybe it's something to do with the large, lilac-skinned gentleman making a bee-line for him with one fat sausage of a finger pointed out in accusation.

"I told you, Carling, I've not seen her. And if you've found her, well, then just keep her." By my side, I feel Clara raising her eyebrows at me, starting to smirk. I feel all of this. I don't see it. I'm not giving her the satisfaction of looking at that. "I haven't had to replace a punch-bag, or sweep sand off the floor, in over a week."

"Now, be fair, Joxon," Carling stammers, "She always did her own sweeping."

This Joxon turns standoffish, sniffs loudly before he'll answer. "Never was too thorough about it."

"I don't understand," Clara murmurs to me. "What about punch-bags?" _God_, I wish I had an answer for her… She's all prissy today and if I could only answer her I feel we might be able to get back on level ground. Sadly, however, I don't actually know the answer she's looking for.

Lucky for us, Joxon heard the question. Unlucky, it seems to have triggered some deep aggravation for him, and he's off on a rant that makes Carling shy away. "Couldn't just punch them, could she?! Had to get all wound up and end up stabbing them-"

"Oh!" Clara interjects, "With the built-in swords, because that would make sense, that that would happen."

"_One a week_!"

He goes on and on, how it was _at least_ one a week, so on and so forth. Carling is cringing. Just one step away from all this, I am having a quiet word with Clara about just _throwing_ things like that into conversation. And especially when Joxon was so riled to begin with. "I'm sorry," she says. "But I knew that one. It was a new sensation. I overreacted."

There is one perfunctory nod between us, to indicate acceptance and forgiveness. We timed it right, too; this is just as Joxon is finishing, "Anyway, she's not here, hasn't been, or I would have sent her to you." He claps Carling on the shoulder. It's a nice gesture, but Joxon, as I mentioned, is large, and Carling is small, so it sends him _oof_-ing into a pommel horse. As though he hadn't noticed this at all, "I know you've been worried."

"Beg to differ," I tell them, producing the sonic. "Not about the worry thing, I believe that, that's very likely to be true. But about her not being here, that's wrong, because she is. Look-" I point at the beacon, so they can see the flashing getting brighter and faster. "Like a metal detector, except it's… a… _girl_-_bone detector_. _Lord,_ am I glad I can just call it the sonic. Now," and I turn in all directions until the pulses speed up even further. I follow, and follow, and follow, and come to a door right at the far end of the room. A small, squarish door, with a broken lock on it, lonely and abandoned and set back in the corner. It's as simple as that. I see that and I just know that we've found her.

"What's in there?" I ask Joxon.

"Just the spare bleeding punch-bags I haven't had to touch!"

Joxon is the one who's just said the answer out loud. Ironic, then, that he misses it. Carling gets it immediately. Clara is just a little ways behind. It comes over her slowly and ends in, "_Oh_!" because all of a sudden she knows this one too.

I put my hand out to the loose, rattling doorknob. Carling's dashes out to stop me. "Wait!" he says. "We don't know what's keeping her in there."

"Not keeping, remember? She's just afraid." This time, he lets me get the door open. Of course, _naturally_, I'm the only one who actually goes in. The rest of them are content to crowd about the door. By the way, if you ever happen to have a friend who is going into a potentially dangerous situation on the other side of a door, don't stand in the doorway. What if they need to run out again very quickly and you're in the way and your friend trips and you get tangled and nobody can move, so we all get eaten by big angry creatures with lots of teeth?!

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not have nightmares about very many things, but this is one of them. Never gather round the doorway, it makes me edgy.

Still, I'm fairly sure it won't be a problem, today.

I creep into the quiet, musky dark of that room. Everything smells like canvas and slightly damp sand.

Joxon must have them repaired, rather than just replacing them. There's a bumpy, deflated looking one in the corner on top of a pile of sand.

…Actually, scratch that. I think I just saw the punch-bag breathing. Rising and falling, like it was breathing. Now, there are a number of things which could explain this. One of them is Lamprinz'd Mites, which have a hive mind, and can inhabit inanimate objects on a microscopic level to make them behave like other creatures. Make mops look like they're dancing, that sort of thing. Or it could be the sort of thing that you humans commonly mistake for a ghost or a poltergeist, any number of incorporeal existences really, and it's just using the empty canvas as a host for a bit. Some of them are like that. They like small, inconsequential things that don't move.

Or, very possibly, and possibly more possibly than either of those other possibilities are really possible, there's somebody sleeping under that dust-scented shell, with sand for a mattress.

Cautiously, I approach. Crouch down by the rise and fall. I stretch out one gentle hand and find a lump that looks like it might be a shoulder. "Hello? Um… wakey-wakey?" Getting closer, I can see on the far side of this flinching heap, there's a little mess, of sandwich and chocolate bar wrappers, a change of clothes, a shoulder bag full of books on diplomacy and galactic relations, a half-empty packet of strawberry laces spilling its remains like so many nerves. "Jessica? Come on, little love. Only me." And when she still doesn't wake up, I grab that shoulder a little harder and shake it.

That wakes her up, alright. Except it wasn't really a gentle, coaxing way to do it and she probably didn't get to hear my voice. So for me, and all those people watching at the door, the first glimpse of Miss Jessica Apple is her roaring up out of the sand, casting off rough canvas, and firing towards me with a two-foot long and very pointy stake shooting out of her arm.

It stops mere centimetres from my neck.

"There now, dear," and I swallow the lump in my throat. "Bad dream, was it?"

Two electric blue eyes stare at me out of tangled hair. With her _unarmed_ arm, she reaches up and moves all that out of the way. It takes a few seconds for her to recognize me. After that, both arms are swiftly wrapped around my neck. 'Around' is an improvement on 'through'. The little head is buried against my shoulder. A quietly familiar voice is murmuring, laboured with relief and distress, "Comes. Knows would. Comes to be helping her, yes? Doctor? Yes?"

I lift her arms off like a jumper from round my neck, sit back on one knee and straighten my crushed bowtie. "Naturally."


	6. Chapter 6

Now, when I turned over the punch bag and Jessica hugged me, and was so happy and grateful and relieved, that was a nice moment. Really. Just nice. I like things when they're just nice. Not everything has to be huge and bombastic with explosions and danger and excitement. Things which are just nice are really very… well, just _nice_.

And you have to appreciate them when they happen, because they never last.

This one, for instance, ends the moment Jessica drags her forearm across her eyes and is able to see clearly. She looks behind me, and sees all those people crowded around the door. That's another reason never to crowd around the door. You never know who's going to see you, or how they'll react. In this case, I have brought with me Carling (who drove the girl into hiding in the first place), Joxon (the staunch defender of the sandbag she's opened to sleep in) and Clara (an unknown quantity at a very delicate moment).

So what I do, so that we may take all that confusion away and regain some scrap of a moment that was nice, is I get up and go over to the door. With two open hands I manage to ease these three ruiners back enough that I won't break their noses when I close the door on them.

Clara, however, spots my intentions. She darts into the storeroom under my arm. "Out," I tell her.

"No," she says. And then, to deflect all further argument, she closes the door for me.

Still on the floor, wearing the sandbag like a cape now, Jessica points through the wall at the people outside, "Professor persons am being mega-angry with her."

Clara is heaving herself up to sit on a fraying, forgotten balance bar. She's halfway there and just stops, boots clattering to the floor again. "With me? Why would the professors be angry with me?"

Of course, she's got it all wrong. Jessica is referring to herself. She just never got the hang of the personal pronouns. I never wanted to push it. When she first learned to speak, it took long enough to teach her she wasn't an 'it', never mind getting into all this messy business of Me, Myself and I. Meaning her, of course, not me. Or Clara. …_Do you see what I mean?!_ The concept of Me and I is impossible to teach because you have to be there talking and referring to yourself as me or I and… Oh, forget it.

For the time being, until there's a better opportunity to explain, I turn to Clara and press a finger to my lips. For the time being, she can just stay quiet. She gives me that look of hers, those laughing eyes. It's 'How dare you' except she's not offended and I always feel like she's secretly giggling at me.

Then I turn back around and offer Jessica my hand to help her up. She tries, on instinct, to give me the one that still has the stake coming down over the top of it. The tip _just_ scratches my sleeve before she notices. Casually, she reaches across and snaps it off.

Behind me, I feel Clara flinch. Hear her mutter, "Um, ouch?"

It's strange, isn't it, how things can come to seem normal to you? Those stakes, to me, are like River's guns. Useful in a pinch, and a pain in the neck when I trip over one left lying around the Tardis. It's easy to forget Clara doesn't know any of this. I try and remember what it was like for me the first time I saw it all. But it doesn't work. The situation isn't exactly comparable and it was so long ago anyway…

Was this a bad idea? Should I have left Clara at home today? She never would have known any different, after all. I would have gone to the post-box, gotten Jessica's invitation and come here by myself. There would have been adventure, and hijinks, and everything would have resolved itself. Then I could have gone and gotten Clara for _different_ hijinks, better suited to her, less confusing for her.

I wouldn't have had to explain Jessica. Is that an awful think to have thunk? I feel like it might be.

In all of this, I have forgotten to be comforting. A small, but very heavy hand, recently disarmed, is placed in mine. Because of the unique and traceable skeleton, which weighs about the same as a small car, I'm not actually much use at helping Jessica up. She just likes having my hand. "The Professors," I tell her, "are not angry. They're worried about you. You've been gone nine days."

She nods, "Knows that. Is to be doing for twelve, then comes back."

"Twelve days. You're coming back the day after the awards ceremony."

"Right-yes."

"And why is that?"

"Because, please-and-thank-you, Jessica am not wanting to be having ah-ward."

I try to sit down on a heap of punch-bags. The top one slips and rolls down the pile. Only be grace and lightning fast reflexes do I manage to stay off the floor. Clara laughs outright. So would Jessica, perhaps, if it wasn't for Clara. That laugh draws her eyes and her attention. She's not ready to ask any questions yet, but she doesn't understand.

…I'm going to have to explain Clara too, aren't I? Was this a mistake? Mixing new friends and old, is that a mistake? Especially when the friends in question are so very complicated.

On the bright side, though, their suspicions have distracted them from the fact that I just made a complete fool of myself. Settling on the new plateau of the pile, I keep hold of Jessica's hand. "Now that's very interesting. Because I spoke to Professor Carling and _he_ said that before you vanished, you were all excited about this award. Which you should be, by the way, well done, very proud."

"Oh, much-yes, Doctor. Was ess-cited. And about big dinner and wears pretty dress and-" and here she pauses to blush and drop her voice, "-and having date-person, and inviting Doctor to be watching… But was _before_."

"Who?"

Jessica tips her head. "Pardons her, Doctor?"

Sorry. I got a little stuck on this concept of _date_-person… Who's that, is what I was asking her. And what galaxy is he from, and what do his parents do, and what's he studying, and what sort of a creature is he, although that last one is more a legal consideration than anything else… But then, I suppose none of those are the really important questions right now. "Sorry, Jessica. I mean, _what_? You were very excited about… _all of those things_, and then something happened and you've been hiding in a store cupboard for nine days."

I already know the answer. Maybe it's cruel of me, but I want her to say it. She'll feel better when she admits what she's really afraid of.

It's only when she begins to speak that I realize it's a truly awful thing to make her tell. I know this because she turns her eyes so totally towards her shoes I can see nothing of them. Her hair falls around her face and she ducks back inside it. From the end of the balance beam, Clara stops smirking at me, and stops eyeing Jessica. She looks away, like she shouldn't be here. If I wasn't still holding that skinny hand in mine, I'd feel the same way.

Jessica paints her nails now. Black and blue. She never used to do that before.

"After Professor Carling am telling her about ah-ward, her was going back to room for studying-times. Was meeting friend-girls in common room, and tells them about ah-wards, because was still ess… _eck _-cited? Doctor? Am eck-cited being right way to be saying it?"

As kindly as I can, I tell her, "I know what you mean."

"Thanks-yes, but is being _right_ way? Ecks-cited?"

For just a moment, trying to get an answer out of me, she lifts her eyes. In that moment she sees that I'm deciding whether to lie to her or correct her, and knows she's still getting it that little bit wrong. Then she slumps, and sits on the punch-bag that rolled away, leaning her head against my knee. I reach down to smooth her hair at the top. "Those other girls in the common room… They were the ones who said you'd have to make a speech, weren't they?"

"Am not wanting ah-ward," she replies. "Or big dinner, or pretty dress, or date-person, or Doctor watches. Him has come to be helping her, right-yes?"

I look apologetically at Clara. It's hardly the peril or exhilaration we had thought it might turn out to be. Clara, however, doesn't see me. She gets down from her perch and quietly, respectfully leaves.

In her absence, Jessica turns her head to look up at me. Softly, as though Clara might be listening at the door, "Who am being that?"

In the same stage whisper, trying to make her laugh, "Am being Clara."

"Not talks like Jessica," she mutters, dismissively, "Is being wrong. But what am being Clara?"

…Bloody good question.

"She's my friend."

As explanations go it is neither full or interesting, but Jessica accepts it, totally, brightly, happily. "Okay." From across the floor, she gets the bag of strawberry laces and holds it up to me in offering. I'm actually about to decline, for once in my life. You see, just when I picked up Clara, a button had come undone on my shirt. Nothing to worry about, of course. Just rushing round the console, getting caught on things. It happens. But she said something sly and smiling about 'the buttonhole caving in under the stress', and now I'm turning down strawberry laces.

The things people say to you, whether they have any foundation or not, can have an incredible power.

Jessica takes one for herself, ties it into a knot and eats it all at once.

"Doctor?" she mumbles with her mouth full.

"Yes?"

"Am Pondpersons being on holly-days?"

Oh, dear Lord… "Actually, Jessica, I think I will have one of those laces, if you don't mind. Or several of them. If you don't mind."

I might be wrong, but I've just got the feeling I'm going to need the sugar to get through this day.


	7. Chapter 7

It's not often, by this stage in my life, that I find myself in a situation that might be described as 'new'. Even this one, I've been through before. It's just never been _quite_ so exaggerated.

I've had to introduce new companions to old before. River always made herself an issue, Jack tends to do his bad penny impression at the _very _best possible moments… the whole _Sarah-Jane_ thing. Now there was an awkward day, there was a day to not be the Doctor. There was a day to just shut up and look at the ground and leave them to it until it all levelled out. It _did_, however, level out. It usually does. The start of things can be a bit dodgy, but they usually get over it in the end. It's funny, but having a world to save or a great enemy to put down, that can work in my favour when there are two generations of Tardis-traveller hanging around. Sort of brings people together, don't you know…

Today, however, I don't believe there's a world to save or a great enemy to put down. Not yet, anyway. That might still be on its way. Wish it would hurry up. Maybe I could ring one. Must be a Dalek in storage, somewhere, just the one, just a little one, a broken one, and-

No, no, that would be very irresponsible, wouldn't it? That's one of those things that would probably backfire on me. No, it's looking like I'll just have to do things the human way, all talking and explaining and awkward silences. It's no fun. I look at Clara and Jessica and I just want to take them out to a funfair. Clara's very shrewd, and could win me a goldfish at one of the target practice games. I'm very clever and could win one for Jessica off answering questions with the super-brain. Jessica's very strong and could win one at that game where you ring a bell with a mallet and give it to Clara, and then we'd all be friends, and we'd all have goldfish, and it would all be alright.

That, however, has not crossed their little minds. And Clara at least being English, we're going to do this in a very English way; over tea, at some silly campus coffee shop. Clara wanted proper tea, after that nasty scrape she had with the green stuff in Carling's office.

Just to make my situation absolutely clear, I am sitting in between Clara, who is currently torn between her prejudice against Jessica's murderous past and her half-formed opinions of the dear girl now that they've actually met, and Jessica, who keeps looking around like somebody is coming for her, won't talk in public except in small whispers, and has taken it into her head to rename my current companion 'Clara-New-Pond'.

The second or third time this happens, Clara looks to me. "Okay, I know it's really rude to ask _you_ when she's the one who's talking, but I've got a feeling I'll get a better answer out of you; what have ponds got to do with anything?"

"Not ponds, Clara; Ponds."

"Yes, _ponds_, Doctor. That's exactly what I said. You just said it twice."

"No, Clara, it's _Pond_. You're not pronouncing the capital letter."

She breathes in very deeply, through a terse smile, looking very much as though she'd like to tear my head off. "And to think, you were going to give me the more sensible answer…"

I'm trying not to give out _any_ answers. The complication of the missing Mr and Mrs might yet be avoided. I turn to Jessica and tell her, very sincerely, with eye-contact so determined that her gaze follows my every twitch and gesture. "Jessica, this is _Clara_. Just Clara. Clara Oswald, if you have to be really precise about it, but Clara-Nothing-To-Do-With-Ponds-Ever-At-All."

She just stares back like I'm mad. "Knows that, Doctor. But is being Doctor's New-Pond, yes? Like Jack am being Captain or Riversing am being Wife?"

From the other side of the table, "What? Wife? What wife? There's a wife? And why is there a river as well as a pond now? This Captain isn't a sailor, is he? A very small sailor, for ponds?" The worst of it is, from the sound of Clara's voice, this isn't a joke. This is her really trying to make sense of things, and becoming deeply confused.

I, for one, am not confused. It's all perfectly simple, and logical, and really very easy. But that's easy for me to say. I've lived through it. I've seen it all happen. Short of sitting them both down and narrating the salient points of my last few years, there's no way to make them understand that. I believe that's why I'm moving the teapot to one side. Putting the sugar bowl on the other side of the table. Sliding the tiny, empty milk jugs over by Jessica's saucer.

All of this clears a nice big spot in the middle of the table. Into this spot, I drop my forehead with a resounding thunk that puts an end to all this talk of New-Pond and sailors.

For a while, I stay that way, enjoying the silence. And I'll tell you what, it's been a while since I was able to say I was enjoying silence… I stay there, with a good, up-close view of the patterned tablecloth, which is a rather appealing sunshine yellow. Beyond my little bubble of peace, I can feel them shrugging at each other, discussing with glances and gestures what to do. There is a pleasant tickle at the back of my neck as Clara moves hair out of the way.

"What am does, Claraperson?"

"Looking for a switch. It was like someone turned him off, just now." At least, I think to myself, she understood Jessica's question. You do get used to her, you know. And Jessica has shifted from the honorific 'New-Pond' to the safer, more generic suffix, '-person'. They're learning. I remove myself mentally from their company for all of two seconds and they're learning.

"Is not being switch. Riversing am much looking for switch before and not finds. Jessica was thinking was being joke-times? But her was looking much-_really_-sad about it…"

"Well, what then?"

Another silence, another pretty pause. Then it's Jessica's turn. She settles her chin on the table. Forgets her own weight at first, and the legs lift up at Clara's side. Then she corrects everything and hangs there delicately. Out the corner of my eye I see a set of tentative fingertips sliding towards me. "Doctor? Doctor am sleepy now? Is to be borrowing Jessica's dormy-bed, right-yes, but not sleeps here."

I suppose I can't leave them up there alone forever. They're lost without me, that much is obvious. "…This from the girl who was bunking down in a sandbag."

"Not because dormy-bed am not being comfy, Doctor."

"No," I say. "No," and I've found a way back into this conversation that doesn't involve them having to learn anything about each other or about anybody who isn't here. "No, not because of that, but because you were hiding, isn't that right? Because you were scared, and you were waiting for me to come and help."

"Please-yes."

"Well, then, Jessica-" In one fine arc I sit up from the table again, "Doctor helps."

"Not talks like her does," she reminds me again, "Is wrong. That's why not does speeches."

"_Nonsense_!" I tell her. "Speeches are easy! I do lots of speeches-"

Clara nods, with her face propped on her fist. "It's true," she mutters ruefully. "He can hardly open his mouth without doi- _making_, a speech." I wish she wouldn't have corrected herself like that. Not out loud, anyway.

"Knows," Jessica tells her. "Is hearing many-speechings from him beforetimes."

…Now, hold on, if they're going to start ganging up on me, I'll be putting one back in the Tardis and sending one to her dormy-bed to think about what she's done without supper. "That's not the point," I cut in, before they can become any better friends, "Clara, have you ever made a speech?"

"I've got a C in Drama at GCSE?"

"Well, then, Jessica, there you have it! Two excellently qualified, _experienced_ teachers, ready and willing to get you sorted, isn't that right?"

No reply. Not from either of them. Jessica is not grinning and glowing and hopeful, the way she's supposed to be, given what I just said. Her head is turned toward me, but her eyes are on Clara.

And when I look round, Clara's eyes are wide. Somewhere between fear and derision. She is very slightly shaking her head. "Oh, so what?" I ask her, "Cute little alien girls with a song to sing, that's fine, you can manage _that_ but –"

"-but little alien girls with swords that come out of their arms and who used to use them, I'm not so immediately sure about. And I don't really think there's anything wrong with that, Doctor!"

I can do nothing but look at her. I'm thinking again about the things people say, the way they stick with you. So I told Clara this one little fact right at the beginning, and she can't get it out of her head, can't keep it from sticking. What is most baffling about it all is that in a way, she's right. Who am I to involve her in this? Who am I to ask her to help? And in a way that goes for all of them, all of my friends, down all this time, and how is it that I've never thought of this before? 'Selfish' is the word that springs to mind, now, finally, and-

"What was to have been telling Claraperson, Doctor?"

-and there's really no time right now for me to be having deep philosophical thoughts. It's taken Jessica all those long, silent seconds to be able to even speak. By the time I turn she is already starting to get up from the table, adjusting the strap of her bag across her body. There is already a strawberry lace wound around her fingers, trying to find the end, searching out comfort.

"What was to have been telling Claraperson?" What can I say? She's heard it all. She already knows. "Doctor not helps. Am being sorry was asking him to come here. Was being much-annoying-times for him. Her am much sorry, okay-yes?"

For a moment, it seems that that's going to be her final word on the subject. She's starting to walk away.

Then she changes her mind and comes back, not to me, but to Clara. "Am having been before-times bad," she begins. "And then am having been badfriend to Doctor-"

I try to interrupt, "That's not tr-"

"-But am not heretimes bad, Claraperson. And might-be am not being much friend either."

This time that's her final word for sure. The rest of it is just heavy footsteps. Usually she tries to be quite light on her feet. Then something distracts her and she walks like Godzilla. I've seen her go through paving slabs while thinking about a riddle. Or when she's upset.

You could perhaps count to three before Clara punches my arm. Really hard. There'll be a bruise later on, mark my words… "_Why aren't you going after her?!_"

"Should I? Is that what I do now, I go after her?" Clara nods with great urgency, and a look on her face like she might punch me again. I get up so quickly I almost knock the chair over.


	8. Chapter 8

"Jessica! Jessica, wait."

I'm losing her. She's disappeared down the side of what I assume must be a music building. You see it's perfectly silent from outside, probably soundproofed, but from a single open window on the fourteenth floor such an incredible cacophony of sound is escaping that you could lose somebody in the noise alone. It's perplexing, makes the head spin, the vision double and blur. Actually, I think it might be making me hallucinate, because I could swear I'm looking straight ahead of me and Jessica has stopped storming away.

Now, that would be a good thing, you'd think. Even as a hallucination, that would be a dreamy one, rather than a nightmare.

This is a nightmare, because I could swear she's just stopped in the arms of a young man. Sort of flung herself to him, actually, if I'm not hallucinating. I hope I am. It's a bloody good hallucination if it is one, I would be proud of it. I mean, it's so _detailed_! I saw the shock on his face when she _thwumph_ed into him. Not just the shock of her sudden appearance, but it's like I said, she's not concentrating on being light as a feather right now. Takes a moment for this… _person_, who is definitely of the male persuasion, to get his breath back.

As I approach, he holds her by the shoulders. They're talking, but it's all drowned out in the mess of whatever bizarre orchestra is screaming upstairs. Close enough to even put my hand on Jessica's arm, I'm still not getting anything. Without sound, I see the way she sighs when she turns and sees me, the wave of her hand to mean 'go away'. I see this young person who is not female look at me, indicating, and see his lips form a scattering of words. One of them is _pierced_. The lips, I mean, not the words. I see 'You' and 'Doctor' distinctly and neither of them is pierced. Nod and start trying to explain that yes, I am, that I need a word with Jessica (who is making it very clear she doesn't want any more words with me) and also that I would like very much to know who he is – or more likely _thinks_ he is.

None of this is getting across.

My lips are still moving when the young man holds up a hand to stop me. While I agree with the sentiment, given that I can't even hear myself, I rather take umbrage with the fact that he's the one to have made this gesture. He doesn't notice my distaste. He's looking off to our left, and I follow his gaze.

At first glance, all I see is Jessica snapping a short stake off her arm. I promise you, I do not panic and I do not believe I'm in any immediate danger. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything. But it quickly becomes clear she has no designs on me. She has positioned herself squarely between the music building and the next. Her… _gentleman friend_ has turned towards her, has knitted his fingers in the time-honoured tradition of giving someone a boost.

I mentioned, didn't I, that the open window is on the fourteenth floor? Unless he's as strong as she is, I'm not sure they'll be able to do any good.

With nods and an admirable amount of silent understanding, they confirm whatever plan they have between them. Then, on two running steps, Jessica plants her foot on the offered hands. He throws her at the wall of the music building, from which she bounces with apparently minimal effort to the opposite side of our little alley here and hangs on the fourth floor window-ledge.

See? Not even four whole storeys. Nowhere near enough.

But enough, apparently, to let her get a better aim. That's what the short stake is for; she fires it like a javelin at the sash window all that way above. Her aim is true, too; there is one thud as the sash drops down, and another as Jessica lands.

Then a rumble of applause from the building she just part-scaled, in which study can now continue in peace.

They're very co-ordinated, aren't they? Jessica and her _friend_, I mean, whoever he is. They looked like they'd done something like that before, like they understood each other. He is, now that I can concentrate properly, not quite as tall as me, quite a bit broader, and has tattooed arms. I feel like I know him from somewhere. I feel like him and me need to have _words_, and the kind of _words_ you can only have in italics. _Words_-words. And me, with all my eloquence, all the thousands of languages I've known and forgotten and learned again, all my degrees and honorary degrees and my (not-quite-not-yet-not-that-old) millennium of experience, what do I say? How do I best express myself?

"Are you date-person?"

He is completely unfazed by this fumble. Stands with arms (_tattooed_ arms, did I mention?) folded and eyes me, "Are you 'Doctor'?"

"Yes."

"Then why isn't she smiling?"

Well, that is a point. That's a very good point he has there. That's a very difficult thing for me to contest, when the proof is standing right there. The proof, who is most patently not smiling, takes him by the arm and is trying to guide him away. Rubbing at her ears (they're relatively new, makes them very sensitive, people need to watch out for that) she mumbles, "Stops, please. Talks later. Doctor am to be going anyway, so is not to be matters."

The way she talks doesn't faze him either. He's used to that too. This is one small thing which takes _away_ from my considerable worries, rather than adding to them.

"Jessica, I'm not going anywhere. You asked for my help and that's why I came."

Now she smiles. But it's not a good one. It's small and sad and makes me feel like I've done something very awful. "Should not have been asking." Then she takes my hand. It's all starting to feel a bit much like a goodbye. Well, she's got no chance of that. I'm going nowhere. I'm not leaving this space-station university until I have worn a tux, and gotten both Clara _and_ Jessica into equally delightful eveningwear. If I have no other mission right now, I have this, and it is just as important to me as any other objective that might ever have been in my life.

But Jessica doesn't know that, for now. For now she just continues, "Doctor am having already done much helps for her. And her was not deserves this-" I try to interrupt, but there's no room for me. "So should not have been asking for _more_ helps. Doctor goes. If is ever needing her is absolutely to find her and ask and Jessica is to be doing. But is not for her to be asking him. Understands that now."

But it's not true. Whether she understands it or not, it's utterly untrue, all of it, it's totally ridiculous. I want to tell her that, but I can't think of a way that doesn't sound like a cover-up, like too little too late. The worst of it is she's still trying to smile when she puts my hand down. She thinks this is her mistake, her fault.

Her friend, who probably doesn't deserve to be in the middle of this, is a half-step behind when she walks away. But up where the gap between the two buildings opens onto the quad, he puts an arm around her shoulders. It's as if he thinks I'm not looking anymore, or they're out of sight. Against my better judgement, I respect that he left it that long.

Then, with the usual impeccable human timing, Clara arrives. "Where were you?" I ask her. Perhaps a little bit too vehemently; she flinches. "I needed sensitive words and apologetic gestures and I couldn't think of any."

"I finished my cupcake. Thought you'd want a minute with her. What was all that noise before?"

"Never mind the noise, it was the quiet that done me in!"

Finally, she seems to understand the gravity of the situation, the sheer scale of the effects of her abandonment. "What happened?"

"Nothing. Well, no, something, but…" And something incredible comes over me, an admission I have to make to her. "I think I made a mess." Clara, with a very slight pout, a very 'You said it' sort of look on her face, nods very slightly. "No, but you don't understand, Clara, that's not how it works. The mess is supposed to already be here, and I come along and then I sort it. I don't _bring_ the mess with me. Usually. Well, sometimes, but those are messes I'm not in control of, and I think I was in control of this one and I still made a mess and _why are you still nodding_?"

"Because it's true."

She's not helping. "You're not helping."

She just shrugs, "I can't help that it's true." Oh, I'm so very disappointed. Clara really needs to be helping me out right now and she's really, really not. I always thought she was the sort of person who would be helpful, in a situation like this. She's not being helpful. I think she can see from my expression that she's left me utterly crushed, because she turns. Actually steps around in front of me and makes determined eye contact.

For the second time in as many minutes, I am given a talking-to by a pair of big eyes, so much wiser than years have given them any right to be. Eyes that wouldn't have made a mess like this, and without the benefit of a thousand years' experience to teach them. "Listen," she says, "you made a mess. It's true. And I know you don't think that's helpful, but what I'm trying to say is… Doctor, it doesn't matter. No mess matters. Whether you make it or you just walk into it or land the Tardis smack in the middle of it, no mess matters. It's what you do with it now that makes the difference."

There is one single moment of further thought. Then I point at her. "That was a good speech, for off-the-cuff," I tell her.

"It was, wasn't it?"

"This is _partially_ your mess too, y'know."

With a bright, sly smile, "I know. And I'm going to help you fix it."


	9. Chapter 9

I've sent Clara to find Professor Carling. You see, I haven't forgotten the way their eyes met on the quad in those early seconds, the way he came round a bit after that. I'll let someone he likes explain to him how I might have accidentally quite badly offended his best student, the one I was trying to coax out of hiding, and who he's been admirably worried about for the past nine days. Did I mention how much I like that chap? Truly a lovely chap. Not like that pieced, tattooed creature I recently watched flinging my dear Jessica at a wall.

He did. He flung her at a wall. Don't question me. Alright, so she was already jumping and it was all to shut that music hall up, but his hands were beneath her foot and he flung her at a wall. We can't sugarcoat that one simple fact now, can we? There was a wall, and my Jessica was flung at it, and they were his hands that did the flinging. It's all completely true, that's all I'm saying. I'm just saying, how can I think of him as a lovely chap when I was there, and saw that with my own eyes? No, he will not join Professor Dooblevay Carling on the Roster of Lovely Chaps, not yet anyway.

Him and I need to have those _words_ first, before he can even get close.

I should have gotten his name, you know. I could have looked him up before we meet again, tailored the questions I need to ask him. That would have been a nice quick consideration, while I'm here anyway. The Tardis and I are in the midst of preparations, for what is known (by me, mostly, in my head, because Clara's not here to tell it to) as 'Operation Win Jessica Back'.

It is neither a witty nor elegant title, but I feel it effectively expresses my intentions and the objective at hand, don't you?

I begin by accessing her student records. It is a surprise, though not a shock, to find another name I recognize on her admissions form. Having had no formal education (except in time travel, teleportation, an elaborate false history of the Time Lords – including how to effectively slaughter them), Miss Apple was depending entirely on personal references to win her a place here. As a result, there is a long and glowing report from one Captain Jack Harkness.

And yes, by the way, it says 'Captain' on the form, not 'Former Captain'. It _should_ say 'former', given that almost any agency that might ever have given him that title has either disowned him or dissolved. Just a brief glance over what he's written about the student in question reveals dozens of such minor discrepancies and exaggerations.

Some not-so-minor ones too. The part about the 'excellent communication skills', I can't help feeling was a private joke. Or, perhaps more likely, he just wanted to see how far he could push his luck.

'_Or_,' mutters a voice at the back of my mind, a judgemental and irritating little voice, '_Or_ he really wanted her to get in.'

Yes, yes, yes, oh wonderful and clever and so-very-_supportive_ brain of mine, I get it. I'm an awful person, you don't have to keep _reminding_ me.

Anyway, I'm not in this file to look at the references. No, I'm in this file to find out which dormy Jessica has her comfy dormy-bed in. Now that she's out of hiding I can only assume that's where she's…

'Dormy-bed' is incorrect. She told me, in no uncertain terms, not to imitate her way of speaking. Not even affectionately. We always did that. Speaking Jessica-ese is very good fun, if you get it right. Simple. I've always found it very calming, like the spoken equivalent of falling asleep. Rory was fluent in it, and they would…

Never mind. That's beside the point, these days.

The point is, this is my point. Anybody can speak Jessica, and with very little effort.

Yes, okay, alright, fine – look up 'dormy-bed' in the dictionary and it won't be there. But we all know what she means. As soon as she speaks, we all know what she means, more or less. How can it be incorrect if the meaning is exactly the same? 'Incorrect' is a ridiculous word; everything is relative, so how can anything ever be truly incorrect? In fact, _I_ vote that 'incorrect' be removed from the dictionaries. Not forever. Just for a week or two. Just to teach the smug little blighter a lesson.

'Excellent communication skills'? I saw the girl give perfect in-Tardis directions to the swimming pool without once opening her mouth. The directee got there and back without one wrong turn. That's a feat. I can't even do that. Excellent communication skills? Yes, absolutely. Tell Jack I'm sorry I doubted him.

And so it comes to pass, here and now, that Doctor am looking up the locations of Jessica-dormy-bed, and is moving on then for the right-choosings of his apology speech, alright?

I've actually got quite a bit of choice there. This might take a few minutes. While I debate the pros and cons of _To Be Or Not To Be _(boom-boom!), here's a story for you, to keep you amused. You don't have to thank me; I know I'm far too good to you. I think far too much of you all to let you languish in the silence while I flip through monologues.

Our story begins with a happy married couple. They had just recently suffered through a couple of very long and strenuous months and had decided to take a holiday. They went to the beach, as I hear people on holiday often do. Now they had a girl with them, but mostly she took care of herself. One particular morning they left her climbing trees and singing to coconuts, and went out to see (in a beautiful pea-green boat, if the rumours are to be believed). (For the record, I'm the Owl and River's the… And that's where that analogy falls apart…)

To pass the time, they did a bit of fishing. And amongst the fish that they caught they caught… _something else._ A sort of slimy, grey, fleshy sac, with tentacles.

It's an octopus, said her husband.

Hardly, said his wife, it's got ten legs.

Then it's a ten-legged octopus, he replied, with infinite patience for her perpetual nitpicking and her utter inability to let him have _any_ success for ten minutes at a time, and it was the only thing I'd caught all day, and… And on with the story.

His wife declared, The name for a ten legged _oct_opus, _sweetie_, would be a _dec_opus.

I'm fairly certain, he said, that it's alright to call it a ten-legged octopus.

And they argued and argued and argued and eventually they had to go back to shore because one of them was going to end up in the water if they didn't and there were no guarantees they wouldn't have been clunked on the head and just left there.

When these two lovebirds reached the beach, the young girl had come down out of the trees. Of all the coconuts she'd met that day, three had become especial friends, and had been brought down as juggling balls. The girl had never heard of juggling. She had, in effect, invented it all by herself that afternoon. She was giving it an incredible amount of concentration.

When presented with the grey and slimy sac, therefore, she could only give it the corner of one eye and only a glance. This was enough.

Am being squid, Doctor and Riversing, she said. And it was a squid. And that was that.

By the way, you ought to know, as wary listeners, as people who are hopefully getting to know me by now, I only tell educational stories. You might have to dig a bit, but there's a message, and you ought to have picked up on it. If you didn't, go back and read again. Clearly you're not paying enough attention. I expect a little more knowing from you, in future. Really rather disappointed with anybody who didn't get the message there…

Speaking of messages, Clara has one for me. I know this because the door of the Tardis is flung open. She slams herself inside, running and breathless. I go to the console rail. Stairs are too much for her; she's run all the way here and can only hang on the end of the banister, gasping and gabbling all at once.

"DoctorIwenttofindCarlingandtherewasanothervoiceso ididn'tgoinbuttheyweretalkingandisweariwasn'teaves droppingbuticouldhearthemwhileiwaswaitingandwecoul dallbeinmassivedangeranditwantsjessicaandtheothera wardwinnersanditssomethingaboutaharvestand-"

"_Clara_!" She stops. Mercifully, oh, praise God, she stops. "Repeat after me, and don't worry, I'll make it simple. Begin with 'com'."

"Com."

"Now, Pre."

"Pre."

"Hen."

"Hen."

"Si."

"Si."

"Ble."

"Ble. Compreh-? …Yeah, very funny, Doctor."

"Make it your watchword and then run all that past me again. And don't worry if I'm not looking at you when you speak. I _am_ listening, it's just that I have to find a toga."

She nods, completely acceptant… for all of four seconds. I am halfway down the other stairs when she gets enough of her breath back, "Wait; a toga?"

"Didn't you have some incredible important warning of grave danger to relay?"

With what sounds to me very much like a grin. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did."

* * *

[A/N - Hey folks - it's been a while since I did an extended Whofic like this. I'm auctioning one for Tumblcon pretty soon (shameless promo there, did you catch it?) so any and all feedback is more than welcome, crit, comments and questions, it would be really helpful.

Much love, and _massive_ thanks to everybody who's reading so far! You make my day.

Sal.]


	10. Chapter 10

_What Clara Saw_…

Look, _comprehensibly_, Doctor, I went to get Carling, like you said. It just took a bit longer than expected because this, by the way, is a really big campus that _you_ might have visited before, but I don't have a map. Anyway, in the end I had to ask for directions. _That_ was embarrassing. Apparently it's rude for a human female to speak to a Kah-Rusky-something-wordy-name?

"Coruskakoripuscent. Horrible creatures. More rules than my lot and that's _saying_ something…"

Yeah, but I didn't know that, did I? And you told me to approach all alien races as equal. Cultural equanimity, you said. Foster a culture of mutual understanding. Is any of this ringing a bell?

"It certainly sounds like something I would say. Clara, I'm starting to prefer the version of this story where you came in and spat out words like a machine gun-"

So I got directions and I got the right building and I got Carling's office, alright? Except when I was outside the door, I could hear voices. Said to myself, _He's on the phone, I'll give him a minute. _In the interests of mutual understanding and all that. And that's important, so please be listening to that, and please remember okay?

"I completely agree. Mutual understanding is very important."

Not _that_. The bit before it, where I was in the hall and I could already hear him. You have to remember that because it proves I didn't eavesdrop on his conversation. I could just hear it anyway, see? He was talking to somebody he called 'sir', so I thought it must be the headteacher or whatever.

"Dean, Clara. Universities have a dean, where did _you_ study?"

I didn't. I mean I haven't. Not yet. I… still intend to, probably. That's if we survive. Which I think might actually be an issue we need to consider. They weren't talking about staff meetings, Doctor. Whoever, or _whatever_, this 'Sir' is, Carling had called him up to tell him we'd found Jessica. He was calling her, 'one of the candidates'. And I thought, _That's weird,_ because I thought they'd already decided she was the one getting the award. Why would there be candidates?

"I don't know, Clara, why would there be candidates?"

…Why are you talking like that?

"Like what?"

All big and boomy like you're about to do Shakespeare.

"Funny you should mention it… I'll tell you when I know why there would be candidates. You keep getting distracted! Wouldn't like to be depending on you for battlefield reports."

Okay, so obviously the Sir on the other end of the phone already knew, so there was no need for Carling to explain it to him. But then I heard him saying, 'Yes, sir. I'll be right there, sir.' So, and this is the part I can't really justify as much as I can justify the eavesdropping so just bear with me for a second, please, Doctor, but I maybe slightly sort of… _stalked_ him.

…

Well? Isn't that the sort of thing you usually disapprove of?

"Not when there's all sorts of dodginess going on. And it certainly sounds as though there was all sorts of dodginess going on. No, you did the right thing, _dah-_ling, well done, tip-top performance!"

Alright, now you're doing camp actor things. What's going on?

"Where did you stalk him to, stalker?"

Halfway round this bloody space station; my feet are aching. It was in that first place you showed me, the main building. There's this great big hall, and loads of people around getting it ready for the gala tomorrow night. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Happy, smiling people. Couple of them stopped Carling, stupid jokes, just keeping him going, about how he'd found his 'prize peacemaker' again. But he didn't really stop to talk to anybody. He just sort of waved them all off. So I kept following, all the way down to the stage at the far end. He went down underneath it, and there was a trapdoor there, with stairs. Dark down there. I was feeling my way along, mostly.

"I hope you were careful."

If I had a broken ankle, you'd have heard about it by now.

"I don't mean it that way. I mean it's starting to sound like there's _extreme_ dodginess going on, and I wouldn't like Carling to have seen you. You should have come and fetched me, Clara."

I didn't know if I could have found the place again. Besides, there wasn't time. And I wanted to see who he'd been calling 'Sir' anyway. Those stairs went on forever. It was worse than where I found you. And the view wasn't half so nice, just damp stone walls. It looks ancient under there. It looks like it was all carved out of the stone.

"But this is a space station, Clara! How could there be any stone!?"

Okay, you've gone way too panto dame now.

"Scale it back?"

By, like, a thousand per cent. Less is more.

"You got a C in drama. Don't lecture me. What was at the bottom of the stone stairs that make no sense and are very intriguing to us both? So help me, I will coach a cogent explanation out of you yet, woman."

A room. Big. Stone, again. Paved floor. And a big machine, or lots of apparatus or… Doctor, I don't know. But it started with something like a big glass funnel that ran from the ceiling and that was the only light in the room. Dim, like old gold, and it seemed to move around in flashes and ribbons… And at the bottom of the funnel, all surrounded by copper pipes and springs and, and, and _sprockets_ and whatever… there was this little flask. The tip of the funnel had just this tiny, very bright drop of gold falling from it when Carling walked in.

And nobody, not Carling nor Sir, spoke or moved until it had fallen and the flask had been stopped up.

Oh, yeah, that's the other thing that was in the room. Sir. Sir was standing over the flask with the stopper ready. He was tiny and withered, like a skeleton with skin on it, but with a huge, round head that stuck way out at the back. Wearing a ragged suit. I never heard him speak, Doctor. I heard every breath he took, huge and rattling, like it was a real effort to him. Pretty scary, actually. But he must have been speaking on the breath, because I didn't hear words. Carling was closer than me, he heard.

They talked about a harvest. This will be a most successful harvest. Carling said, 'I agree. The girl is the real prize. This changes everything.' And whatever Sir said, he laughed. '_Especially_ the price,' he said. And then he said it again and he was really enjoying it. It scared me. I didn't even know what they meant or what they were talking about, and it still really scared me.

"I should hope so too. Scary stuff, undoubtedly. And you're _sure_ it was Carling? I mean, he was on the other side of a door and then you only saw him from behind, so isn't it possible, just a little bit possible, that-"

_Doctor_!

"But lovely, sweet, quiet, won't-even-drink-real-tea Dooblevay Carling, Professor of Peace? Are you sure you're sure? Please, Clara, tell me there's some doubt."

It surprised me too. That's part of what was so terrifying about it. That, and the way they just kept repeating themselves, about the harvest, and the girl, and harvesting the girl, and that being the best thing ever and…

"And?"

And then Carling mentioned you. He told Sir, 'It was a stroke of luck. He just showed up this afternoon.' And Sir must have asked who and Carling said, 'The Doctor.' Something about the way he said it was funny, though; like he knew he'd made a mistake, said too much. The breathing got faster. That withered little man at the flask was heaving with it. I saw him grin. I saw him starting to shake and I knew that was what he did instead of laughing.

Carling was trying to talk, and that Sir flung his skinny arms to mean 'Get Out'. Carling tried to argue with it, but I knew he wouldn't win, so I used that to get a head start.

And in comprehensible conclusion, Doctor, there's a strange, clattering Sir underneath the great hall, which has designs on your mate Jessica and anybody else who's won an award. Professor Carling is in league with it. And it's down there laughing and plotting about you right now. That's why I'm pretty sure that nearly everybody is in huge major trouble. That's what I was trying to tell you when I came in just now."

"See, Clara? Do you see now that it takes more than one breath to offer an effective account of recent happenings that have a possible bearing on our continuing existence?"

Yeah, alright, you don't have to rub it in. I was trying to give you the quick version and then we could maybe go back there so I could show you, but _no_, apparently it's no good if you don't get to be sarcastic about things along the w-! …Doctor? Do- Doctor, what are you doing? Wh… what are you-? _Arh_! Doctor, do you want to maybe put your shirt back on, please? Now? Like, right now?

"Never! Now help me tie this toga."


	11. Chapter 11

Naturally I'm very worried about everything Clara just told me. And about Clara too. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely proud she took the initiative and went and saw all of these important developments happening, but I'd really rather I'd been there with her for it. Even in spirit, or on the phone or something. No, I'm very worried indeed, about an awful lot right now.

There is, however, something that has to be done before we go chasing after basement monsters and stone stairs on space stations and huge brass-and-copper apparatuses. We need to get Jessica back on side. Now more than ever we need her back on side. If I'm going to go chasing after the aforementioned monsters and such, I'd much rather do it with a very protective and perpetually armed young lady between me and him.

What's that you say? Don't encourage her to use her armaments? Bad influence, when she's trying to be peacable these days?

Yeah, see, I thought of all that. Then I imagined the look on her face when I tell that Professor Carling has had some part in this. And then I told myself just to shut up and stay out of her way, so I don't honestly believe my encouragement or otherwise is going to make one single jot of a difference, do you?

Anyway, she has a valuable position; she's an award winner, on the inside, a potential victim of this 'harvest' business who will be canny to the scam. Jessica's going to be very useful to me.

As soon as she's talking to me again.

And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is why I'm standing under the window of a young student's dormitory bedroom in a toga and with an olive wreath about my head. Well, I couldn't find a traditional olive wreath. Had to make it out of green tinsel. That's alright though; that's the effect I'm going for.

On the way over here, I learned my speech, and gathered quite a following, who have assembled to… so far they're mostly giggling. Soon, however, they will be listening to me. First they'll laugh. Then they're be impressed. Then I'll leave them with something to really properly think about. Wait and see, that's _exactly_ how it will go.

Clara has disowned me. She's still by my side, but now she's about four feet away from it. She's blushing to the point where it looks very much as though she might pop a few blood vessels in her face, looking thoroughly scandalised.

Good. All the better for making my point. I'm _glad_ she's ashamed of me. I _revel_ in Clara's shame.

A milk crate has been provided by a kindly member of the student body, to keep the hem of my toga off the ground. It's gotten rather grubby just on the way over here. Still, look on the bright side; it would have been worse if my toga were white. It's a rather charming, dusty rose sort of a pink. It was the only sheet I could find and it is absolutely perfect for my purposes, so don't say a word, please.

A scattering of gravel is provided by another helpful hand. One by one, I pelt the little stones at the right window. "Oi! Apple! Moody-face! Oi! Window! Open window! Oi!"

I'm running out of gravel when the sash starts to lift. To my dismay, the face that appears in the gap is _not_ my dear Miss Apple, but her… _friend_ from before. "Listen," he begins, "she says to go awa_oh_, my dear sweet Jesus..." He stops, mid-message, and reaches across the window, shaking a shoulder. He stops shouting, so I can't hear him, but it looks like he's trying to help. Trying to get her to look out.

Just the very edge of a little head peers around the window frame. Which is all the attention I need. I clear my throat, hitch the folds of my toga and begin.

This speech is given by Marc Anthony, in the third act of Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_. Not to spoil the end or anything, but he gives it at the funeral of a pretty major character. Well… Maybe this won't be a _verbatim_ performance of that particular speech…

"Friends!" I announce, to this motley assemblage, "Friends, Romans-" Jessica throws herself head and shoulders out the window, hanging on the ledge to look around even at her feet, scanning the crowd, "No, love, he's not here… Hold on, I'll start again…"

"…Friends, Romans, Jellybabies!"

"Oh my God," Clara mutters, and hides her head in her hands, "He's serious about this."

Despite this rudeness, and the laughter of the students, I continue, "Lend me your lug-nuts! I come to borrow Caesar, not to put down a deposit on him."

This loses me the interest of a number of Legionalia Cultists from down the back, whose religion holds up Caesar as a minor saint. It's alright though; the more I say, the more are gathering around me. I'm not going to miss those few.

"The weasels that men catch will tickle them. The stoats are oft a bit more stoic about things. So let it be with Caesar. The cola-flavoured Brutus hath told you Caesar was ambiguous-"

"Yeah, we heard that about him!" Bu the Legionalia students are the ones getting heckled, not me. When the cult of Rome sprang up, so did the cult of Hannibal. You can imagine, maybe, they're not the best of friends.

Trying not to laugh along with the general mass, "If it were so, it was a squeaky letterbox, and squeakily hath Caesar sent letters! Here, under skirts of Brutus and the rest – for Brutus is a cola cube; so are they all, all cola cubes – come I to blabber at Caesar's TV movie marathon-"

Finally, now that I've mentioned sweets, it feels safe to risk a glance up from my rapt audience to the true object of this recital. Jessica is still hanging where she was when she got all excited about potential Romans. Now one hand is propping up her face. The other is swinging limply out the window. Her _companion_ – oh, no, scratch that, I can't mutter that word sarcastically, I love it too much – her attentive _bloke_ (much better) has one hand on her back. I believe he is playing with the ends of her hair. Which is my job and doubtless he does it with no such purity of thought as me. _My_ thought about that is always _ooh, there's some soft, curly ends, let's play with them. _Doubtless, absolutely doubtless, he is thinking something quite different.

But it does look like she's smiling, a little bit. Which is a start.

I break character to ask her, "Do you get it yet?"

I wish she'd shout back. She doesn't. She mumbles something to her friend and _he_ shouts, "She wants to know if she can have one of Caesar's cola cubes if he doesn't need them anymore."

"You can have them all, love; he's dead." Which, at the very least, gets another cheer from the Hannibalites.

I've started now, I suppose. And these people gathered round, they know it's a joke. They're laughing with me. I turn my attention back to them, telling them all about the general coffees and the Loopy Cow and Root-Based Feasts (with carrot cake for afters, obviously). It's rather excellent, you know, this speech of mine and Marc Anthony's. It goes down well. It would go down a lot better if I could properly concentrate it. I can't, though. In the background, Jessica's mate is pointing happily down at mine.

"You Clara?" he calls.

"Wishing I wasn't!"

"You here with him?"

"No. No, we've never met. I just helped him get here. He said he knew his way back to the asylum, but then he put the toga on. Never seen him in my life before today. Me good Samaritan, him complete lunatic, alright?"

And because I am about to finish and I need all the attention I can possibly get and they are distracting peoplefrom me, "_Clara Oswin Oswald, will you kindly shut up!? And you up there and all!"_

They each draw away, giving me the same wary eyes and raised hands. I nod, sharply, accepting their defeat.

Then I clear my throat one last time.

"My spider is in the sweet-shop there with Caesar," I cry, with all the mourning and wounded pride that ought be given to these immortal words, "And I must pause, or Pacman shall be eaten by the ghosts."

I lower my head, draw in my hands, to show that I have finished here. The crowd erupts, cheering, applauding. I take as few bows as is polite and reasonable. Then, while they're still going, I look back up to Jessica at her window.

Communication requires cupping my hands around my mouth, bellowing like a foghorn. "You see? It doesn't matter what you say! They're students, Jessica, they'll cheer for anything. Watch this –" To the gathered around my milk crate I say, "Yay for crisps!"

They go up in a fresh wave, celebrating the simple joy of very thin slices of fried potato dusted with various flavourings.

"Yay for cake!"

Cake is a less culturally-specific term than crisps, and works them up to a roar.

"Yay for Jooglemuellers!" Which is a word I just made up, but they don't know that anymore, and if I'm not careful, I could leave here with a cult of my own.

I shrug at the young lady above. That mate of hers is laughing so hard at this that her back is the only thing holding him up. Clara is still by my feet, still shielding her face as though even to look upon me is death, and murmuring over and over, "_I'm not with him, I'm not with him, I'm not with him…_"


	12. Chapter 12

My toga-clad exertions have gained us entry to that small sanctum above. I approach slowly, and with dignity, and not just because if I step on my hem again the knot's going to pull loose. I'm doing this out of respect, and affection. These are peace talks. Let's call it a practical lesson, some field experience. Especially seeing I'm not sure how much longer she'll have Professor Carling for a tutor.

Jessica has not left the door open for me. A statement of intent. She really has been training…

I knock, once, perfunctorily. There is no wait. She was there to open it.

Over our shoulders, Clara's eyes meet those of Jessica's mate. She, prettily, probably thinking she's helping, "We'll leave you to it."

As one, Jessica and I balk, "No! Stay." Or, in Jessica's case, "Stays."

We need seconds. This is one of the first rules of peace negotiations; you don't just leave the two warring parties in a room. They're likely to turn on each other, to do it all over again. Plus, I just want Clara around. I imagine something similar is going through Jessica's head. But first things first, we all need to know each other. I put out a hand, finally introducing myself to the metal-faced, skin-etched boy who, actually, seems to be defending her.

"I'm the Doctor, by the way, but then you knew that."

The fact that I'm the Doctor, even though I know Jessica's told him all about me, doesn't seem to impress him. He must be impressed, but he's covering it up. Acting unfazed again. His grip is strong, his handshake firm. "Liam."

Jessica is peering past us into the hall. At first, I'm thinking it must be my crowd from outside, some of my more zealous followers. It's not, though. These are new people. Not all of them human, but all of them female. All peering back with unabashed curiosity, and a very mild derision. "Not matters," mutters Jessica, her voice almost below notice, and she steps back out of the doorway. "To be coming in anyway. Closing door, please, Claraperson."

The room is almost the same as any other space Jessica's ever made her own. For the most part, it is how she would have found it; sparse and impersonal. But there are blue paper flowers in a bowl next to the bed. Library books piled next to the messy desk. And tucked in around the mirror there are photographs of her. Of Amy and Rory. Of River. Of me and a scone (don't ask). And some more recent ones, all of herself and this Liam lad. Just enough to make the room hers. Nothing she couldn't walk away from.

I take the chair from the desk and sit down – carefully; that knot's still slipping. Clara leans on the edge beside me. Jessica settles herself on the end of the bed. "Why am Doctor making speechings outside beforetimes?"

"I told you. I was trying to show you it doesn't matter what you say. I thought it would help."

She's smiling when she looks down, "But why others?"

Oh, she's onto me. She's so onto me. Clever, clever girl. "Because we always have good fun when I'm making a fool of myself. We _are_ friends. Nothing that ever happened before or is ever going to happen could change that. I just wanted you to laugh."

That sounds like emotional blackmail… I don't think it really counts as proper emotional blackmail if it's one-hundred per-cent true.

I think she knows that. It takes a nudge in the ribs from that Liam to get a real reaction out of her. "Was being much-angry for him when Claraperson was knowing about old-days Jessica. Was not being for Doctor to be telling her."

Clara, bless her, raises her hand. Tries to say, "That was my fault. Partially, anyway."

"Not was. Doctor was only one who was to have been knowing, and Doctor was only one who was to be telling. Jessica am not being story Doctor tells for companionpersons."

As grateful as I am for Clara's help and support, you really can't fault her logic. And she makes a good point about the stories. I do talk an awful lot and I don't always do a lot of thinking beforehand. I told Clara about Jessica's past because I was trying to impress her. Not once did it cross my mind, what Jessica would think, what it would do to her to know I was talking like that.

On this occasion, however, I have done far too much thinking and not enough talking. In the interests of ending the pause, Clara leans down, whispering in my ear; "You know before, when you didn't know you were supposed to go after her, and I gave you the cue?"

"Yes."

"This time you're supposed to apologize."

"Right," I whisper back. She starts to lean away and I pull her back to whisper, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Just get to it. They're about three feet away, I think she can hear."

So I let her stand back this time, I get eye contact with an expectant-looking Jessica and I test the word on my tongue before I let it roll away. "Ssssorry?"

And then I curl up, as far as the chair will allow, because I must have said something wrong, because Jessica is up off the bed and charging. But as it turns out, it's not an attack, it's another hug. Really rather unprofessional of her. I hope she doesn't use this as a case study; she'd have trouble finding critical justification for physical affection during peace talks to put in an essay. "Accepting!" she trills, right by my ear. "Sorrys am being all her was wanting to hear."

"Oh good," I saY, moving her back. "Then maybe we can tell you something you probably don't want to hear."

It's the oddest thing, but when I say that, Liam stands up. He comes to get her. An arm around her shoulders, moving her back like I'm some sort of threat. And he's shaking his head too. Not at me, not telling me to stop, just because he doesn't want bad news. He's holding on to her because he doesn't want her hurt again so soon.

But I've started now. And anyway, it's important. There's only a day and a half until the awards. Believe me, I wish my only imperative now was to wear a tux, show up, and glow with pride at this bright, sparkling girl who never would have gotten a chance to be that way without me. We have more to worry about than that, though. It's like I said. I need Jessica for that as much as I need her because I just need her.

"It's about Professor Carling."

Jessica just watches. Liam is the one who speaks, "The geeky, hippy fella?"

From under his arm, she can't do much, but Jessica flaps back one hand, hitting his shoulder. It'll probably still bruise. "Professor Carling am being friend-professor, thanks him…"

Clara, with incredible tact considering she was the one who watched all the dodginess in the basement, "Maybe not as good a friend as you thought."

She proceeds to explain what she saw. It doesn't take her half as long as it did when she told me. This is all my amazing coaching coming to the fore, by the way. It's because I've already taken her through it that she's able to do this without wasting too much of anybody's time. And it's good that she's the one doing the explaining. That lets me look on, observing the moment I had imagined, when Jessica hears about her second betrayal of the day. Hopefully this one can be considered a graver offence than mine was.

You'll remember, perhaps. I had imagined it as a sort of trigger. She'd hear this and then we'd just get out of her way.

That doesn't happen. All that happens is she goes to her bag, hanging on the back of the door, and fishes out the strawberry laces. Clara flounders, looking at me as if to ask if she should continue. I nod her on. One, two and three laces are quietly, very quickly munched away before Jessica turns back, but she's listening, every word of this.

"And then he was laughing about the Doctor," Clara finishes, "And he told Carling to go, so I had to leave."

Jessica is still at the door. Still hasn't turned. After a couple of seconds, Liam looks round at us. "Leaving's not a bad idea," he says. "Just for now." He starts taking her away from the door, opening it for us in the process.

"No!" Jessica cuts in sharply. Now she turns. "Liam not does. Doctor am being friendperson. But Jessica am knows Professor Carling and is being afraid. Doctor and Claraperson shows her. Then believes."


	13. Chapter 13

Being far more of the small and sneaky persuasion than either Liam or myself, the ladies have gone on ahead, looking for the dank, stony place beneath the great hall again. It's the sort of thing I would usually advise against; two young ladies of my acquaintance, who have my affection and respect the pair of them, slipping into the lion's den, and for one of them it's her second time today. I'm actually fairly certain that most of the sane and caring people in the universe would advise against it. And yet I let them go. There's a reason for this. All will become clear.

Unless, of course, something terrible should befall them. If that happens then there was absolutely no reason and for the record I objected strongly and they did it anyway and I said no, I really did, scout's honour, I promise.

Nothing will happen, though; I'm here, watching to make sure nobody else goes down those secret stony stairs. It's a spiral stairwell, very narrow, nowhere to hide, and I wouldn't like to see those two explaining themselves in a pinch. So that's why _I'm_ here.

I couldn't possibly tell you what Liam is still doing here.

"I'm sorry," I begin, "but I can't get it out of my head that we've met before."

He looks me over. "I think I'd remember." Because I am unforgettable. Top to bottom, utterly unforgettable. I make an impression, leave a mark, a flare of brightness and intelligence in a dull and cloudy day, a snappy dresser, great taste in accessories and one _hell_ of a dancer. Or, at least, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and _pretend_ that's what he meant…

"Don't you have classes?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have to be here, y'know."

"Yeah, I do."

He says that in this content, blasé, totally unafraid way that makes me think twice. Now, it's not that I'm condoning his bunking-off, or his utter disregard for his expensive, high-grade education. Nothing like that. It's just that tone of voice. _You don't have to be here – Yes, I do_. There is an imperative that is keeping him with me, guarding the top of the stairwell. He has no choice in the matter. To be anywhere else would be a betrayal.

"…Are you absolutely sure we haven't met?"

"I told you, I'd remember."

"Then, and given your age it's a long shot, but did you ever meet a man _like_ me, but with a squarer jaw and darker hair, with a brown coat and nice trainers on?" He shakes his head. "What about leather jacket, sticky-out-ears, big nose?"

"Big," he says, "Or bigger?"

"I don't have a big nose," I tell him. "There's a little unnecessary protrusion around the chin, Clara keeps me very well-informed of that, but that's all. The rest of me is… _Grecian_ in the perfection of the proportions." Liam doesn't say anything. He looks away. There's a little flash of anger in me that gives me the impetus to go on. I have something to say to Liam. Words, remember? Him and I have to have words.

I would be doing a lot more talking and a lot less floundering if I knew what those words were.

"You," I begin. It comes out with more of a tone of accusation than I would have wanted. "You," I correct, a bit softer. "You… met Jessica, at some stage. Or I'm assuming you'd met her at some stage before you flung her over your head next to a music building. How did that happen?"

"What, the flinging, or-?"

"The meeting."

"Funny you mention that; she said she knew me from somewhere too. She knew my name, in fact. Must have heard it somewhere… Rocks up, starts gabbling away. I wasn't getting any of it, then. You get used to it, though."

"I know. I got used to it before anybody else. I knew her when she couldn't talk. I'm still used to her sign language." This look grows slowly on his face, 'Alright, mate, go easy'… And I must say, I agree with it entirely. "What I mean… my friends are very dear to me. I take their happiness very seriously-" I would go on, but he rolled his eyes when I said that.

When you think about it, hard to blame him. After all, he knows nothing about me, except what Jessica's told him. Of me personally, his experience has been purely based on what I've done since Clara and I arrived here at Wise Star. And what have I done since Clara and I landed here at Wise Star but cause offence. Yes, I've made it up, or done my best, but the first of my acts that Liam was witness to was when I left Jessica feeling so awful I had to get dressed up as a pink-and-tinsel Roman to heal the wound.

I am, by the way, still in costume, though not in character. It's quite refreshing, actually, the toga. Maybe I'll visit Rome for a while afterward, or go to some other planet where the toga's made a comeback. Maybe I'll _bring_ the toga back, that might be fun… But for now, who knows what sort of picture we cut, me as Nearly-Marc-Anthony, Liam as something akin to 20th century rebel youth, guarding the top of a stairwell. It's not unthinkable that really we're just _repelling_ people from the top of the stairwell.

"Can I save you some stammering and me some earache? It's just I can smell a concerned-dad talk coming, and there's no need. Me and Jessica aren't like that. We're just mates."

"But… But the gala! _Date-person._ Is there some other date-person I have to go and find and have words with? And if there is, would you mind awfully if we just had a quick run-through of that talk? I want it to sound a little better than this one was sounding."

"No, I was going with her, but we're just mates."

...Alright, I know they were only _words_, and it wasn't as if I needed to get in a fight or anything, it wasn't even going to be an argument, really, but I cannot describe to you the depth of my relief that we don't need to have them.

And now that that particular weight is off my mind, I can think again. I am thinking about two things, specifically. One of them, is oh, dear God, I let Clara and Jessica go down those stairs on their own and we don't even know what we're up against and alright, so if they have to battle their way out there are worse bodyguards Clara could have but nonetheless, that was a bit irresponsible of me, all in the name of having a quiet private chat with a gent I have no cause to have a quiet private chat with in the first place, and yes, now that there's no threat in him, Liam can absolutely be a gent, he can go on the list, replacing Professor Carling, who was removed from the List of Gents for improper conduct and fraternizing with a potentially villainous party and making designs on my Jessica and oh, dear Lord, I let Clara and Jessica go down those stairs alone, what was I _thinking_?

That's one of the thoughts.

The other is a bit less apocalyptic. "I think I've remembered where I know you from," I say to Liam.

"I told you, Doctor; I only know who you are because Jessica never shuts up about you. We haven't met."

"Not yet. Not for you, anyway. Jessica knew you too, when you saw her first, that's what you said."

"You mean," he mumbles, starting to smile at the idea, "you two are out of my future? But what about your girl Clara? She didn't recognize anybody."

"She wasn't there yet. She's come since. When I knew you before, if I'm even right about that, Clara was in my future. You're out of my past, if you think about it."

"Steady on," he laughs. "I'm a lit student, not temporal physics or philosophy, any of that…" There's interesting small-talk to be made there; last time I was here the university couldn't get a temporal physics department up and running. That's why I was here, actually; they wanted me to be the one running it. Naturally I declined. Much as I love the idea of moulding young minds, explaining the joys and traps of time travel, lecturing on the necessary caution… It was all a bit much like going back to the Academy. There was a personal price there I didn't feel I could pay on a daily basis, a memory too raw to have tapped and drained every day. You can call me sentimental if you want, you can tell me to leave it behind, if you want.

But your past is never really your past. The proof of that is standing next to me. "I should warn you… Well, no, I shouldn't, it's the last thing I should do, but I'm going to anyway. The first time you ever clap eyes on him, a man called Rory is going to punch you very hard in the face. Don't hold it against him, it's not his fault. A reflex, as if you'd tapped his knee. Except with punching."

Speaking of punching, a very small but very sore one lands in my arm even before the words are out of my mouth. Apparently Jessica and Clara are back, and the former is quite annoyed; "Doctor am doing bad spoilers to Liam?"

"_No_! No, we weren't talking about spoilers or foreknowledge or things that haven't happened to him yet, were we, Liam?" Jessica turns her glare to him. Over her head, I shake mine, staring, mouthing, '_Nooo'_.

"No," he says. "No, we were talking about… the chess results, last season, how Paulowitz needed a good punching, the way he let that queen of his go in the final…"

I nod sagely, not only because he's covered up rather well there, but because I remember the final he's talking about. I was in the audience. Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, Paulowitz was _this_ close to getting that good punching. You can see me, but I'm holding my thumb and forefinger _impossibly_ close together to demonstrate how close he was to the punching. Bloody close, he was.

"Doctor?" Clara says, sounding quiet and afraid. She puts her hand on my shoulder, "Doctor, you're clenching your fists."

"…He had the whole tournament in the bag, Clara."

"Doctor, take a deep breath for me. Please?"

"I had two jars of wine gums and a roll of Lovehearts riding on that game."

"Alright, let's get you back to the Tardis, you mad, sheet-wearing old thing."

That hand then turns me around and with her arm across my back I am guided away from that place. Which is all wrong, by the way. Our probable enemy is down there and I haven't even seen it yet. But really, never in all my days as an ardent follower of professional chess have I had to watch such an accomplished player disappear so totally into such an obvious trap and – And a heavy hand is tugging on a hank of my toga. "Yes, Jessica?" and my voice is full of the distant grief of losing those Lovehearts, even though I only lost them to River and she shared, but that's not the point…

"Can be showing Tardis to Liam, please?" She's smiling. Genuinely this time. There's still a sort of hurt in her expression, but I didn't put it there. I imagine Professor Carling did. Her smile, in the here and now, is very real. "When is meeting him later him was already to be knowing, so Doctor is to be showing now, yes?"

Now, given my memory of him is hazy at best (I meet a lot of people, it happens) I cannot remember exactly if Liam expressed the appropriate level of shock and awe upon his first encounter with transdimensional engineering – the sensation a human being usually renders with the exclamation, 'It's bigger on the inside'.

But what the hell. I could do with the unequivocal joy that exclamation usually brings me.

For the sake of appearances, I try and sigh it out, "Bring him along, then…"


	14. Chapter 14

He didn't say it. The ridiculous boy didn't even say it. He said, and I quote, 'Some gaffe you've got here'. And yes, it is some gaffe, but it looks like a police box from outside. I'm used to getting comments on that. Haven't had a proper comment on it in a while, actually. Even Clara got it back to front. Not that I'm some old, set-in-his-ways fogey who can't cope when some little thing gets changed, but _come on_, folks! _It's bigger on the inside_. State the obvious. It will be the one time in our entire association where it will be perfectly alright to state the obvious. It is your only free pass, now for heaven's sake, gratify me.

Seems an ageing Time Lord just can't get the breaks these days.

I've gotten over it, of course. It's not still playing on my mind. It was a while ago now and it's gone from me, totally forgotten. I am completely past it.

After all, some of us have work to do. _Some_ of us have clues to piece together and problems to solve. _Some_ of us have to deal with the matter of hand. Heaven knows it's not going to be anybody else. The ladies, if you can believe it, have gone to pick out dresses, of all things… Young Liam couldn't get out of here fast enough at the suggestion. And so it's just me and my Tardis, up here in the console room. It's quite nice really. Bit of hush. Bit of peace and quiet. Just what I need.

…I miss Clara when it's quiet. I've just remembered a story about a vampiric Cafnorn and a stick of rhubarb that would have her in stitches and-

But no. No, I've got work to do.

Here are some things that don't make sense in any way at all.

First and foremost, a dank stone cave on a space station. Now, if this were Earth, or any sort of planet at all, even an asteroid, there could be a drippy, stalagtitey cave down under the surface. But it's not. It's a big metal spaceship in the sky. It shouldn't even know what a stone is, except in theory. And a harvest, and a withered, rasping little man in league with a professor of Peace Studies, and a great contraption that can turn golden air into single droplets of golden liquid. What does that all mean?

And the withered, rasping man laughed when he heard my name.

Whoever or whatever he is, what could he possibly want with a bunch of students, albeit the very bright and clever sort?

And then it strikes me; the stone is the way to investigate this. I grab a couple of things from the console and head out the southern door, down the corridor past the kitchen, take the helter-skelter to the swimming pool, cut through the museum rooms and across the herb garden to the wardrobes.

I enter backward, and with a hand over my eyes. "Sorry, sorry, totally necessary visit, look, my eyes are covered; you'll have to look, because I can't, because I repeat, my eyes are covered."

Bored and smirking; "We're still deciding, Doctor." And a right mess they've made too, I see when I turn around. Chiffon and sequins all over the floor, empty hangers rattling like the bones of hanged men, silk and marabou tossed around over the rails. "What was it you wanted?" Clara mutters at me. Or rather her reflection does; she can't take her eyes off it, holding a gold satin number up against herself.

"That's fetching," I tell her. "That's a very good colour for you."

"I'm not sure about the fishtails, though. Don't think I'm tall enough. You did have a reason when you came in here, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I keep forgetting it. Where's Jessica?"

A little voice, from far away. "Is not really knowing…" I look left and right, out across the rows and rows of rails and mirrors disappearing into the distance. But she's too small and I can't see anything. I shout out for her to give me a sign and, seconds later, a red feather boa appears in the air on the end of a stake, waving like a banner. "Where am being Doctor and Claraperson?"

"Follow the sound of my voice. I need you over here anyway."

While we're waiting for her, I find another golden-yellow dress, this one with a black flowered edge, and hold it out to Clara. "Must've missed that one," she says as she takes it.

"I don't know how. It's only thing left on its hanger."

"Oh, we'll tidy up. This is nice; this is definitely going on the maybe pile."

Surveying the piles of piles about our feet, "Which one's that?"

"Between me and the mirror."

"The maybe mountain? You do know the event itself is tomorrow? Are you going to have time to go through all these?" Clara looks at me like I've let her down immeasurably. For a moment, I forget the frivolity of the situation and just go to pieces under that stare. It's getting too familiar, and my overreaction feels perfectly normal. "What? What, what have I done?"

"No _time_?" she says. "You told me there was always time, because it's a time machine."

"Yes, when it comes to world-saving, or species-rescuing, or getting to two parties on the same night, but for dresses-!"

"Why are my pursuits less important than your pursuits?"

"Stop shouting at me like we're married!"

"Do you know how often you mention marriage? It's weird!"

"It's one of a few human experiences I can actually empathise with!"

It's an argument that has the potential to escalate, except that I am lassoed by a red feather boa and drawn back. "Doctor and Claraperson not fights, please."

Which is really rather sweet of her, but it puts a terrible thought in my head. I really feel I have no choice but to turn and tell her, in genuine fear for her grades at this fine establishment, "Jessica, darling, sweetheart, princess, _never_ use that line in an practical negotiation exam, alright?"

She rolls her eyes. Behind me, Clara does the same. It's all these mirrors everywhere; I can see everything that's going on. Either they're forgetting that, or they don't care.

"Did you want us for something?" says the companion I brought here by choice and didn't have to give her the use of this fine collection, y'know… "Only, now that I'm on a time limit, we've got decisions to make."

Yes, fine, I suppose we'd better get to it. "Ladies, if you could present your hands, please."

I said please. You saw that. I said please. Jessica heard it, and she just holds out her hands. Clara, however, says "Why?"

"For the greater good," I moan, "_Hands_."

Two lovely pairs of hands they have. The smaller pair are bony and strong, unadorned but for their painted nails. The larger pair (only very slightly larger) are rounder and softer and wearing a black resin ring shaped like a fox. Rather lovely hands, all of them, and I press them down with a faint squelching sound onto a piece of agar paper I've been carrying in a roll. Clara cries out at the cold stickiness of it. Jessica recoils, but keeps her hands where they are until I tell her otherwise.

"And if we could both breathe onto these," I go on, producing two paper masks. This time Clara's constant questioning helps; she's breathing out already when I press one to her mouth. "Good, thanks very much, that's all sorted. Now I'll leave you to your little fashion parade while I go and figure out what we're fighting."

"Enjoy that," Clara says. She turns back to the mirror and starts digging through the maybe-pile.

Jessica, on the other hand, is looking at me trying to balance the two masks and the agar sheet. "Is for trapping of traces. Is to be finding out from them about underground place." Smiling, thinking I'm clever, in awe of me. _Gratifying_. Of course, the really sad thing is, she doesn't mean to be. She just isn't quite so enamoured with the dress hunt as Clara is. "Jessica helps?"

"No," I say, and turn her by the shoulders to the next nearest mirror, "She gets ready for her big moment."

"See, has been thinking, Doctor, and is to be very thanking him, but probably still not goes, and-"

"Oi," and I straighten her face so she has to look at herself. "You escaped the Silence. You fought Soul. You rescued yourself from Stormcage. This is easy-peasy for you."

She has nothing to say, but she doesn't try again to follow me.

As I leave the dressing rooms again, I hear them talking, muffled between rails. Clara asking, "So, this speech-"

"Not talks, Claraperson."

"What would you say, if you were going to say anything at all?"

Then nothing, for a while. I'm not eavesdropping, by the way. I'm just sort of lingering outside the door, which isn't fully closed. I couldn't close it; I have my hands full with all my collected traces. That's why I've stopped, I'm just getting everything balanced. I'm not eavesdropping.

Then, eventually, "Thanks all peoples. Would be thanking all helpers. And hoping too that if badtimes are ever to be coming, that learnings is to be helping them. Is correct, Claraperson, right-yes?"

"Right-yes," I tell them, very softly. Maybe they can't hear me, but maybe something of the sentiment gets through.

…But anyway. I have work to do.


	15. Chapter 15

"_Aha_!"

"Ow… Doctor, that was right in my ear."

That response gives me two options. One: Stop and explain to Clara that, when one has made a considerable breakthrough and been very clever, one gets deeply excited, and needs to exclaim, or all the excess joy and everything would get all boiled down inside me and either turn into something not half as nice or explode and kill me from the inside out like a man who's eaten far, far too much (something which I used to doubt, but let me assure you it's possible; I've seen it once, and I'm pretty sure if Dorium hadn't gone and got his head lopped off, it would have been two…)

Then there's a little thump from deep in the Tardis, that might be something to worry about or might just be her way of making the record skip on a little bit.

Or Two: plough right on. And given that option one will likely distract me and then I'll lose the buzz that made me exclaim in the first place, which would make any injury to Clara's delicate ear absolutely gratuitous anyway… "I've found him, I know who he is, what he is, where he is, well, where he's from, but then they have just moved it into space, so really it's the same place, yes, I know where he is… Don't know how he is. Still laughing and plotting when you last saw him?"

It takes her a second to realize this last was addressed to her. I have to turn and nod, prompting her. She's still not getting it. The Tardis has to give another thud (actually, what is that? I should be thinking more about that) before Clara stops staring and bursts, "Yes, yeah, still laughing and plotting."

"Then he's having a good day and I know everything, like a good Doctor should." I like the way her smile comes up, you know. It just sort of _appears_. Like swapping between two pictures – straight face, smiley face. I like when that happens. And now that I've expressed my own brilliance to my own satisfaction, I can slow down a bit, and tell her with best graces, "And I'm terribly sorry about your ear."

It's a wicked smile too, you know. It isn't the first time this has occurred to me, but you could choose a good companion out of a crowd based on smiling alone. It has to be quick to appear. It has to be honest. It has to be wicked and bright and childish and (these thuds that keep happening, they're definitely getting closer to the console room) more than just an upward tugging of the lips. If the heart doesn't catch light, it's just not worth it. "That's alright," says the wicked smile. "So tell me about him then. Laugher Plotter. Tell me everything."

"Where's Jessica? She ought to hear this too. Surely she's not still down there? My Jessica, out-shopping _you_?"

"On her way. It's just taking her a little bit longer to get back."

"Why?"

"_Bad _shoes!" Her voice, from down the nearest hall, is a strangled roar, raging between clenched teeth.

Clara does that thing with her nose, the one she does when she expects me to disapprove. Don't like that so much as the smile, it's a bit weird. "Because I got her to put a pair of heels on? I _think_ she's found a new arch-enemy."

Ah. All the thumps. Every time she stumbles or falls, my poor Tardis is getting the full benefit of her altered physiology. Or, in layman's terms, her tonne-bloody-weight of a skeleton. "Take them off! I call down the hall. I've always thought they were silly things."

"_No_! Not does. Bad shoes am being naughty and her am to be fixing!" Now, at first, that doesn't sound sensible. But I think back then, to River and her delightful mother, and the mastery they had managed to achieve over the non-sentient beings in question, and I don't question it. It's about now that Jessica comes into view. Arms out, using the walls for support, wobbling like a baby giraffe getting off the ground for the first time. "Doctor? Explains please. Because Jessica am being good balance person. Has trained for balancing. Has got inside-ear machines for balancing. But her can't be balancing in bad naughty shoes."

Clara goes down to help her cover the distance from the end of the corridor to the console rails. "There are no explanations," she mutters ruefully.

"Except when it comes to the _other_ bad-naughty thing in our life right now!" This is me trying to remind them that there are important things. Of the two women present, one of them is interested. That, however, is the one who cannot rush to my side and actually _act_ interested.

Still, what is there for me to do but carry on regardless, even in the face of adversity and indifference. Really, my own internal strength amazes me sometimes. "You see, ladies, I sourced not the creature itself, but the _cave_. As you might have guessed-"

"Nope."

Clara again, interrupting my flow. "Beg pardon?"

"Hadn't guessed. Haven't guessed at anything."

"Well, that's just lovely. Here I am, sweating over this, working my fingers to the bone – _don't make that snorty noise you make when you're laughing at me_! – and you haven't even tried."

"I went and gathered all the information. Analysis is your job." Companions… they do _one_ thing and suddenly they get all lazy and complacent.

"_Anyway_, I sourced the cave from the traces on your hands and breath. Elemental structure of the stone and residual atmosphere, so on and so forth. And _as you might have guessed_, it's all a match for the planet on which this space station was built. Which makes sense, when you think about it, _if you bother to think about it_, Miss Oswald."

Suffice to say, the interruptions continue. It is made very difficult for me to offer a full and cogent explanation. And all the while, in the corner of my eye, Jessica is attacking the steps, one at a time, walking like a diver on the seabed, huge, careful steps. It's solid theory, but she keeps falling over during those times where she's on one foot. It just makes it very difficult to concentrate on talking to them.

I'll talk to you, how's that? You don't interrupt. That'll be easier.

The station for Wise Star was built at a human colony just outside of Andromeda's critical gravity. It was a factory settlemen, put together for that exact purpose. Did a bit of business in the expanding personal craft (or 'space car') business afterward, but the station we're standing on is the reason that rock was terraformed and put to use.

Thing is, you humans weren't the cleverest or most sensitive when it came to your early colonies. The sheer depth of your belief that you were alone in the universe… The only reason I am not crippled laughing at you right now is that I've been crippled laughing so many times I'm used to it now. You were all so chronically stupid and I… I'm sorry, that's insulting. But really, you were… Anyway, you weren't very good. You built on a planet that already had life on it, you daft things. And then, just to pour sea-water into the raw gaping wound, you terraformed, changing the whole terrain, the habitat, the atmosphere…

Ninety-eight per cent of the population died overnight.

This is the part where I usually stop laughing, if I've started. Ninety-eight per cent… The rest weren't far behind. And, well, while I'm sure the humans in charge were very cut up about it all, the damage was done and they planet was just _lying_ there. So all the plans went ahead.

It wasn't the easiest job in the universe, though. Lots of problems. Disappearing scientists, that was a big one. The best and brightest were always vanishing into thin air.

And there was this rumour, amongst the workers, the grunts, that the original inhabitants of this planet were responsible. Which was ridiculous. Silly scaremongering. You're human; you know how you people get. Why, think back to when you were a child. The night would be dark and there would be a rustle in the cupboard and you'd be scared, and what would someone big and lovely do? They'd tell you a story. There are no monsters. There are only fairy stories. And when you are older, and you are terribly afraid of epidemic disease, you make up a government lab which created the virus and tell that story. And when there's a war, you make up reasons for it, and even your newspapers will tell that story. That's what human's do.

Of course, it was silly. It wasn't monsters. It wasn't the original inhabitants. It couldn't have been; 'inhabitants' is a plural. There was only one left.

Naturally it had to be the strongest and smartest of the species to have survived. Smart enough to know it had to get off that planet. Smart enough to know it wasn't smart enough to manage it on its own. Strong enough to gather the scientific minds it would need, and to manipulate them. That cave under the main building was made into a _part_ of this station.

"And it's been living here ever since?" Clara says, when I finally get to that point.

"It has enough of its own atmosphere to survive. It can't live anywhere else. That's why you could hear it breathing, struggling. It's suffocating, every minute of every day, wasting away to nothing. Think of it, Clara; an outcast, alone, quite literally fighting for every breath."

"So what am being _harvest_-times?" For those of you following the epic saga of Jessica's ascent of Mount Console, she's at the top now, looking longingly at a seat, but bravely staying upright, looking like she might attempt a circuit around to me at the monitor. She's still thinking about that. And I realize there's nothing in those sentences to answer her perfectly-sensible question. It's not that I don't know. I have very strong suspicions what Harvest-times will involve.

I just don't really want to talk about it.


	16. Chapter 16

It's too late for any ordinary professor to be just popping into his office. That's why I came to wait here. And yes, perhaps sitting in the corner with the light off was a little extra drama… Then again, drama's been the theme of the day. One of them, anyway. And I never will tire of that little pop of surprise on someone's face when they've been caught like this.

Carling doesn't keep me waiting long. He reaches in, switches on the light, and spots me. That little pop, that little gasp. "Doctor. What're you doing here?"

"Et tu, Dooblevay?

"Ah yes," he says, covering up shock and a tremor with a smile. "I heard about your performance. I assume your pretty friend has gone into hiding?"

I left Clara co-ordinating her shoes and accessories for tomorrow. She doesn't know I'm here. With any luck I can be back before she even realizes. "I don't think she's any of your business, Professor. Her or Jessica. Or any other award-winning student, for that matter." He knows he's been caught. He knew that from the moment he saw me here that he was caught. But I'm not much in the mood for a long, polite discussion. I want him on the back foot. "If I had come here alone, and I didn't know anybody involved, we might have had a bit of fun, you and I. But as it is, friends of mine are in danger and I will not stand for that."

Carling gets flustered, starts fiddling with his cuffs. All the usual, "No idea what you mean," and "Doctor you've got it wrong." But this is the part I'm not in the mood for. This is the part we can only do when nobody I know personally stands to lose out.

Just to cut him off, just to make him stop talking, I say quite loudly, "What does it call itself? We'll start with this and move onto the awkward stuff, like why you would work for it and how you thought you'd get away with it. Names first, though. What do I call it when we meet?"

He thinks for a while about whether or not to tell me anything. Then, "I don't know its real name. It calls itself a scholar."

"Doctor, Professor and Scholar…" Forgive my pleasure at such a tense moment, but there's a lovely consistency in that. We're missing an Academic and that's about it. "Take me to it."

"I can't do that."

"I already know where to find it, so you're not really doing yourself any favours."

You have to watch him. Carling sits himself down behind his desk, folds his hands, and looks down at them. There's a soft, lapping sort of sound from the fish in their bowl. The plants have folded up their leaves for the night. The office doesn't look like it did when I came here first, not half so welcoming. Carling's sort of sighing to himself and he doesn't look the same either. I can't _believe_ I put him on the roster of lovely chaps, y'know. Can't believe I fell for it. I'm so very disappointed. And _he_ for his part, seems content to just sit there and think about it, like if he ignores me for long enough I'll go away. That's not how it works. I'm the Doctor. There's no getting rid of me. I'm like a mouldy patch on a ceiling, only with a purpose, and nicer, and better for the general health.

So he needs a little prompt. That's fine. I can prompt him. "You are, or anyway you claim to be, one who teaches peace as an art. Do not allow war to glut itself under your nose, and certainly do not be the one to feed it." Finally he lifts his head. The eyes that meet mine are empty, a little stunned. Maybe I've gotten through. "We can still fix this, you and I. Take me to it, Professor."

He pushes back the sleeves of his sweater. He shouldn't, he'll stretch the cuffs, and I mentioned before he's a natty dresser. Associations with evil don't change that. But now doesn't really feel like the time to mention it, and between that movement and his running a hand through his hair (unfortunately thin for a young human, unfortunately thick for a paraguid (which he might be, they can be so morally ambiguous (I really much get out of these brackets before I go any deeper))) he looks ready. I trust him when he says, "Of course." I trust his shakiness for guilt when he shows me to the door. I'm as quiet and kind as I can be when he ushers me out with an open hand, "This way."

Told you, didn't I? I'll be back at the Tardis before Clara can ask if this handbag makes her bum look big or whatever form that question takes these days…

I follow Carling the way I knew he'd take me. He navigates these hallways with speed, unthinking, so absolutely accustomed to it that he probably doesn't even notice it… Hm? Notice what? Oh, nothing much. But I'll suspect you'll know the feeling, if you've ever seen a school or a university after hours. When the corridors should be full of happy, laughing voices, where the only despair should be over homework not done or grades not good enough, and when they are instead utterly empty. It's the sound, if such a thing might be said to exist, of a faded echo. Like cobwebs, it tells of desolation and time.

Staff don't notice it. Or, at least, it doesn't disturb them. They see it all the time and they see the corridors filled again the next day. But I, sadly, do not have that assurance, and in the echo, in the loss and the sense that there was something here which is now gone, I worry about this 'harvest' afresh. It's the sort of thing, if it were to go ahead, that could make the lack of sound more permanent, and that scares me.

I hope it's only because he's staff that Carling doesn't seem to notice this. I wouldn't like to think there was any other reason. I especially would not like to think that he is, in some way, _enjoying_ the eerie silence. I would not like to think he _wants_ it to be more permanent.

Just imagine, if you can bear it, the largest space station Humans have created (at this time), and utterly dedicated to training the young, to learning, to _pursuit_, and _research_, and _knowledge_, knowledge above all things, and lying silent. What eye could look upon that and refrain to weep?

But it's not going to come to that! I've brought him to his senses, remember? And we're off to meet his mate the Scholar, beneath the Great Hall, trapped forever inside part of his own planet with a fading atmosphere.

He'd better have come to his senses, at any rate; these stairs are bloody murder. They go on and on, in a tight spiral, getting damper and slipperier with every foot we descend, and darker too. Then, just when there's some light glowing up from above, Carling turns to me in the sickly golden wash and says, "I'll go ahead of you. Just give me a second."

No. But I let him think I'm complying, stop where I am until he's round the next turn and out of sight. _Then_ I follow. After all, he only asked for a second, and I've given him at least four.

"Yes, sir," he's saying. "I brought him."

The Scholar is as Clara described. Bent and bowed, shuddering constantly, heaving for every rattling breath. It's skin and eyes are jet black, the latter only distinguished by their curious glint. The mouth is an upturned rictus of a grin, ear to ear.

It's the sort of creature I could have felt sorry for, under better circumstances. It didn't ask for this. Certainly didn't ask for the rest of its race to be exterminated, to be left alone, living on its wits, knowing that someday the quality of the air here in its home would deteriorate enough that it too will die. I could feel sorry for it on that count. No, it's the way it intends to go about replenishing that air that bothers me so much.

"Doctor," it rasps, drowned in its own breathing. "This is pleasant."

"I wish. Love meeting new people, when it's pleasant. This, though, this isn't pleasant. This is very unpleasant indeed. Because I know what you intend to _harvest_ and I know why. And I don't even blame you. Still I can't allow you to go ahead with it."

The Scholar nods. It can't answer me right away. It is, instead, looking intently at the apparatus I've heard so much about; like half of an hour glass coming out of the ceiling, full of wispy, golden light. A series of glass tubes in brass brackets. And at the bottom of it all a flask of impossible liquid, a distillation which should never exist in isolation. The Scholar is capturing a fresh droplet, and only when it has fallen and been trapped can it sigh a long breath and say, "I appreciate that."

"I knew you would. You're a creature of erudition, and education."

"Oh, so much education. Enough to know," it heaves, "that you would come. Too much to be swayed by the paltry worries of a Time Lord. _Far_ too much to heed a Time Lord such as you…"

I get the feeling I resent that. What I don't get is time to be certain, or to react.

You see, I'd forgotten Carling was still here. Still lingering near the bottom of the stairs, last I saw him. And I'm rather afraid, from the dull thumpf of pain and the way the room is pirouetting, that he's clocked with round the back of the head with something.

From the way the ground seems to be approaching, I afraid I'm falling down…


	17. Chapter 17

Red grass. Red grass in a dream is a sure sign I've been knocked out at a crucial moment. Red grass is shame and guilt. No prizes for guessing where that one comes from. But that's all I remember of it. I am asleep on red grass, which disappears and leaves an even colder floor, with dew dissolving into that slimy film of moisture that gathers on the stone. Still in that basement, then. And there's something painful, stiff. It's my arms. They've been pulled around behind me, chained at the wrist around one of those elaborate pipes.

"I have, of course," says a voice in the fug, "tried to make you as comfortable as possible. There isn't much to work with down here." There's no gasping and rattling, so it's not our Scholarly friend. I can only assume it's Carling, then, but he doesn't sound like himself.

Or rather he does. He sounds the way he did when we first met. Nervous, helpful, ingratiating. Like a lovely chap, if you recall. Calm little man, fiddling with his glasses and his cuffs. Except I've got this big throbbing bloody lump on the back of my head to remind me, I might forget that he's not really so friendly as he pretends. It also keeps me from answering him right away.

He takes my silence for reticence. And of course, the first rule when dealing with a prisoner of war is to keep the lines of communication open. Hence his soft voice, hence he's tried so very hard to help me, hence that ugly, forced little smile I see as the details start to clarify.

"Come now," he says. "No reason we can't be civil about this. After all, you said yourself, you understand why it has to happen. Why, we cannot ask any creature to allow its own extinction, can we? And that _is_ what you're asking, Doctor. Without this harvest, our mutual friend doesn't have too much longer to live."

Oh, he's good. Really, he's very very good. And that soft, persuasive voice. There's an awful moment where I almost feel I've been chained up for my own good, to prevent me from doing something terribly stupid. But it's only a moment. After a moment I remember that I came here with a noble purpose. I was in the right.

"And where is our mutual friend?"

Carling kneels, helping me sit up, then sits back on the balls of his feet. "Preparing for its exertions. There's an air pocket near the back of the cave. We've been saving it for a rainy day. Not that it hasn't wanted to use it up, some of the more difficult nights, but…"

"Keeping it on the straight and narrow, are you?"

A flash, too quick to be sure of, of a brighter smile. "We watch out for each other."

I see red again. Red grass. Maybe it's just the last of unconsciousness leaving me. Or it could be something to do with the fact that Carling and his Scholar watch out for each other. Something to do with the fact that I didn't even tell Clara I was coming here and- "Carling, what time is it?"

He laughs a little. Takes a fine fob watch from his pocket, very old fashioned in this day and age, and gives it a polish before he opens it. "Just gone four." Then there's time yet. If I can only get out of here I can call a stop to everything. Clear the hall above completely until something can be done about this. "P.M., I mean to say." It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, it's still enough time. And it means I've been gone long enough to be noticed. Clara and Jessica will have realized something's wrong.

Part of me hopes they're looking into it, hopes they're own their way. The vast majority of me hopes they've both slept in and know nothing yet, that they're both blissfully ignorant, happily dreaming. If they could just show up and save me about ten minutes ago, that would be lovely. But there's more danger down here than they realize and if they came nowhere near it ever again it would be too soon and that would be lovely too.

"And I suppose if I promised to be very good and keep my lips zipped, you wouldn't undo these chains?"

"I'd probably think you were lying to me."

Can't hold that against him, I suppose… "And if I asked really nicely?"

"I'd feel simply awful about keeping you here." Carling's calm has taken on a whole new dimension. In light of developments, the absolute unwavering consistency is unnerving. Makes me ask, "And why exactly are you keeping me here? Just to prevent me from interfering? Because that won't work, y'know. I always find a way to interfere. I'm a terrible one for the old interfering."

"It's our friend. I'm afraid he rather insists on keeping you. Seems to think you're going to be a _wonderful_ source of sustenance. But he's weak, as I'm sure you've noticed. You're to be saved for last. Dessert, as it were."

Well, yes, I'm terrifically sweet. I've always know that. So few people ever comment on it. It's quite nice to be appreciated. I'm not sure that's what Carling meant, though. He probably meant something scarier…

I have to get out of here. Clara… Clara, if you're out there, if by some miracle you can hear me… Clara, warn Jessica, get her away. Tell her they're going to eat her soul… And when she's safe somewhere, tell whoever will listen to you, they're going to eat mine too. They're going to eat my soul… They're going to eat my…

* * *

_Above, in the Hall…_

He's gone. The Doctor's gone. I thought last night he was somewhere in the Tardis and he'd show up, but he hasn't. And I didn't know what to do. How could I? I don't know what year this is, but I'm pretty sure they didn't have space uni in 2013, and if I have to get home, how am I supposed to tell the Tardis that? She can't stand me at the best of times. She thinks I'm a bad influence. The Doctor says this is a ridiculous theory. He says it's all in my head. He hasn't heard the way she growls at me when he's in the library or something and he can't hear her. I'm not being funny, she really does growl at me. You can believe it or not, but she does, and for no reason.

But that's not really the point, is it?

Jessica came to the Tardis, trying to cop out of accepting her award again. She seemed _chuffed_ to find out we had bigger problems. Then I told her what those problems were. Since then it's been all business.

I wonder if that's why I'm here. Why he keeps me with him. Hopelessness is a very lonely thing. Once you have somebody else trying to help, and looking to you to do your part, it all becomes so much easier. Once there were two of us, we were able to go looking for him. I've got the feeling now that we're getting close.

Jessica keeps tugging on her ear, like she's trying to clear it out. "Claraperson am to be hearing that?" she mutters, eventually.

"Yeah."

"Tappy-noises?"

Yeah. Small, but really sharp. Sort of annoying, actually. There's no rhythm. It's like whatever is tapping is having a seizure and can't control it. It's coming from the wall, I think.

We're under the stage in the main hall, where the stairs are. It's the only place left. The Doctor's not in the Tardis and Carling's not in his office. Where else is there for us to look? Lucky for me, Jessica's all into this search-and-rescue thing. That suits me. She can go ahead of me, with her swords sticking out of her arms.

That, of course, was before the tappy-noises. God, she's got me doing it now. The tapping, I mean. That wasn't here the last time I was. That ought to be investigated first.

I'm still letting her go ahead of me, though. Nothing to do with cowardice, just that that's where she was, a closer than me, and her ears are so much more sensitive anyway, and, _oh my God_, but what if they were expecting us? What if they knew this would happen, the monsters or whatever, and they're waiting? What if they're sneaking up on me right _now_?!

I spin, but there's nothing there. But it feels so much safer to be standing back to back, so that we can watch all the angles at once. Behind me, I feel Jessica kneel down, "What is it? What'd you find?"

"Pipe. Like in below room. Is from what tappy-noises comes from."

And the tapping is still going. Actually, the more I listen to it, it stops sounding random and irritating. "Jessica, swap places with me." She does it fluidly, and without a word. I get as close as I can to the brass pipe and listen. Random, maybe, but there are patterns. The taps and the pauses form patterns. "I… I think it might be Morse."

Silence while she listens out for it. "Yes. Right-yes, is being. Much clever, Claraperson."

"Oh, well, good on me, then, because I don't even know Morse code."

"Jessica am knowing. Claraperson gets out marker, writes it."

"Marker? I don't have a marker."

"But all Doctor-Pond-persons is carrying markers for Silence."

"What are you talking about? And once and for all, please, _what_ have ponds got to do with anything?"

"Ponds was being Pond-persons before Claraperson was Pond-person." Oh, never mind. "Takes Jessica-marker." That's a bit easier. A bit more com-pre-hen-si-ble, no? It's handed down to me and I uncap it, try it on the wall. "T," she says. "M."

It takes a while.

What we end up with in the end is –

_tmysoultheyregoingtoeatmysoultheyregoingtoeatmysou ltheyregoingtoeatmysoulrunruntheyregoingtoeatmysou lthey'regoingtoeatmysoulrunrunrunrunrun._

Jessica's still calling out letters. "Stop," I tell her. "I think I've got the message."

"Claraperson?"

"Yeah?"

"Goes downstairs to stone-place now. Saves Doctor."

"No to the first one," I tell her. "Yes to the second."


	18. Chapter 18

_Clara_

Please, please, please don't look at me. If you look at me, I'll stop, and if I stop I'll think about it. If I think about it I'll realize I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. On the plus side, I'm doing a really good job of pretending I do. Jessica's _totally_ buying it. That actually feels a little bit wrong Like, of all the people in the world to lie to, to tell all the 'Yeah it'll be fine' and 'I absolutely have a plan' to, she's not the one.

Oh, God, is this how he feels all the time? The Doctor, I mean. Or is it different for him and he really does know what to do, every time, without fail, without question… I'd like to believe that. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's just that I've been on my own with the Tardis for almost a full day now and she hasn't growled at me once. I just feel like I'm doing something she finds familiar, comforting. Maybe she knows better than to have a go at someone who's already making it up as they go.

Or, more likely, this is just her way of helping. The Tardis is in as much trouble as the rest of us if something happens to him… If something's already happened…

Jessica argued with me, under that stage. I won't spell it out, word-for-word, if you don't mind. It gave me enough of a headache just untangling it out loud. She talks fast when she gets riled up. 'Eats soul!' featured quite heavily. Can't say I blamed her much, really. But the message, the Morse, that was telling us to run. The only difficulty was in figuring out, if the Doctor really needed help, would he ask for it?

The answer to that is no. That's why we have to help.

But there and then, we couldn't do anything. What if we'd crept back down to that basement and been captured right along with him? We were no good to him that way. We needed something smarter than rushing in their all-guns-blazing. Or all-swords-slashing, as the case would have been. Besides, while I have _no_ doubts whatsoever that the Doctor's _dear, sweet_ (those are his words), _formerly murderous _(those are mine) little friend can take care of herself, I didn't fancy my own chances in a situation like that.

We needed something smarter.

Sadly, all we had was me. My plan, such as it is, is to play along as far as possible. The Doctor never explained what this Harvest thing is all about, or what it's got to do with the awards. Which is just bloody typical when that's the _one_ thing that might have been really helpful, of course he didn't tell anybody about that, why would he, it's only the key piece of information, but then again, how can I stand here and complain about him when I don't know if he's alive or dead or has had his soul eaten, but while we're on the subject, what does that even mean, about them eating his soul, if that's some silly exaggeration I'm going to kill him myself and-

"Much-sorryness, Claraperson, but is very-small starts to hurt her now..."

Oh. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't be ranting to myself when I'm the one with the hairbrush. I stop hauling her head off and start tying off the ponytail at the back of her head. I told you, my plan is to play along. She doesn't have a choice anymore about going to the ceremony. She hasn't tried to get out of it again either, totally understands.

"Is to be worries about Doctor?"

Somebody with less patience and more nastiness might want to say something like, 'No, about global warming', or similar, but not me. "Yes."

She's turning round now, and her hand comes up and stops on mine. "Not does," she says. One little shake of the head. Sounding so darkly serious my heartbeat starts to slow down. Which is a really good trick, because I hadn't even realized how fast it was going.

"Come on," I tell her. "We have to go." We don't exactly look like we're off into battle. I'm wearing the yellow dress, the one the Doctor threw at me yesterday, when it was perfect and I'd missed it. Jessica's in plain black, like anybody else who'd rather disappear than be seen. I try and think of it as subterfuge. Who could ever suspect us? Yeah, that's it. We're like spies in an enemy embassy. Except we don't know who the enemy is or what they want or what we're supposed to be looking for, oh, my God, I'm actually doing this, aren't I?

Can I tell you something about myself? In my life, I've been in three fights. Two were with the same girl at primary school. And they weren't exactly what you'd call fights, more beatings, and I wasn't in the better position. Number three was at the Year 14 dance and… Alright, so I did a bit better in that one, but she'd had more to drink than I had and I was the injured party to begin with so… Do you know what, you don't need to know the details… Maybe I shouldn't have started to tell this. My point is, from Chinese burns and hair pulling to 'get off him, he didn't come with you', I have never started a fight in my whole entire existence. And I have this really funny feeling that's what we're going to be doing tonight.

Or maybe not; even as we come down from the console, there's a knock at the door. Me, I take this stupid human second to think twice. Jessica just bolts for it. "Doctor!", like there's no other option, like it couldn't be anything worse… For a second I almost forget to go into a blind panic, wondering instead at the fact that she's mastered walking in heels overnight. She mumbled something about physics when I asked her about it. If things calm down, I have to ask her about that. If there's a formula, it's worth a fortune.

And in all of that pointless sort of mental twittering, I forget to panic.

God, I'll bet he does this. I'd bet all sort of money. I've done it by accident, but I'll bet this is a technique the Doctor has perfected, and is using all the time. I never notice because I'm usually the one in the blind panic. You see how this works? God, I'm getting _really_ good at it now, aren't I? That was a secondary tangent. And this is tangent number three.

No such dilemma, between panic and pointlessness, for Jessica. She just throws the door open.

But it's not the Doctor. Relief hits me hard. Disappointment hits Jessica. And there in the doorway, poor Liam doesn't take it so well. Mutters, "Don't look so pleased or anything. Only been waiting around all day. Thought you'd gone back into hiding."

"Oh, no," she tells him. "Not does. But Liam, is having been small-small plan change."

"Don't try and tell me you're not going again."

"No, goes now. But goes for saving of Doctor."

He looks at me, probably for some short version of the facts. I don't really have any facts worth giving him.

"We'll be late," I say instead, passing him, leading the way before I realize I don't actually know the way. Talking before I know which of the three of us I'm telling, "We'll just have to be careful. Try and figure it out, find a way to help him." The more I talk about it the stupider this all sounds, the more it sounds like we won't be able to do anything and the Doctor will die horribly and it'll all be my fault. The more I talk about it, the more I want to just… Well… "Oi," I say, turning on my heel, "You two are from the future. What's the future equivalent of just calling the police, letting them deal with it?"

"That is to be being bad for Doctor."

I ask why. But her answer was distracted, and she misses the second question entirely. Which is alright, actually, because I'm not sure I even want to know that one… No, all of her concentration is taken up with sticking a single yellow rose into the top of her ponytail. That's fine. It's not like it took me ages and she's wrecking it. Besides, we look very co-ordinated, now. Behind me, knowing this isn't the time for trivial sorts of question, she lowers her voice right down to ask, "Where was Liam to be finding life-flower in uni-station?"

"That's for me to know and the botany department to never find out, alright?"

And okay, so I don't want to interrupt, mostly because it gives away that I was listening in, but Liam just said something important. I turn one more time, "Wait, did you break into a greenhouse for one stupid rose?"

Through gritted teeth, because he doesn't understand, "_Yes_."

"Do a good job of it?"

"Yes."

"Oh, right, then you're the useful sort of friend. The Doctor's always going on about people like you. Walk up here; for one, I can fill you in on the details. For another, you can show me where I'm actually going. How do you people not get _lost_ around here?"


	19. Chapter 19

_Clara_

Eventually we find where we're supposed to be. They've done a good job of making the hall look happy, festive. A proper celebration. Part of me wants to imagine there's nothing wrong. All we're going to do is go to a party. Jessica will be fraught with nerves, and then her part will be over and she'll forget it. We'll have a good time. Dear college chums they might be, but Liam's all geared up to try and turn that yellow rose a little pinker (if I've got my flowers right). The Doctor will be at the Tardis when we get back there, and will be absolutely fuming that he missed the opportunity to wear his tux. It's okay, I'll tell him. Because I'm looking around now, and it's all very student-chic; he would have been overdressed. He'll insist on taking me somewhere else, somewhere 'overdressed' doesn't really apply. It'll turn out there's a jewellery room on the Tardis as well. I bet the Doctor throws one hell of an after-party. Everything'll be fine. Actually, no, better than fine. Everything will be perfect.

That's how I know it can't be real. What's real is the place I saw with my own eyes, under the stage, deep down where the old stone is wet, rasping and waiting, laughing about the Doctor, talking about harvest and money with Professor Carling. That was real. I was there. It's just that I wish it was a party, nothing more than a party, nothing less.

I've never felt so aware of absolutely everything. The lights, the conversations around me, a glass getting broken at the far end of the hall. When you don't know what to look for, you just see everything. It's giving me a headache. This is all still while we're being shown to a table, by the way, this is before anything has even happened. There's people and noise everywhere, overwhelming.

Then, as we sit down, next to an empty seat with a 'Reserved' card to hold the Doctor's place (I should remember to steal that card for him), Jessica mumbles to me, "Three exits, two accessings for beneath-stage, seventy-two people, no direct threatenings and no Professor Carling."

"You… You got all that coming across the room?"

"When was before-times badperson? Does rooms _all_ the time. Really boring."

Craning round, trying to get in her eye-line, Liam echoes, "Before-times _what_? What did I just hear?"

He can't see her but I can. That little wince you do, eyes shut, when you're considering pulling out your own tongue, cutting into pieces and sending them to the four corners of the planet, if only so it'll never harm anybody ever again. Don't ask me why, but I help; so she won't have to answer him, I ask, "What do you mean, no direct threats? There has to be something here."

"Is not being _person_ in hall who am being threatenings. But was thinking, when Doctor was to be talking about harvests, that there am being-"

Good start. As sentences go, loving her opening. Rrally makes me think there might be something interesting, useful, coming behind it. But nothing follows. Jessica stops. Looking warily at something over my shoulder. It's funny; we've hardly met and I know from the way she dips her head that she's expecting her hair to fall forward, to hide her.

"I heard you showed up," says a new voice. A sickly-sweet one with a forced poshness on the accent. I dislike the owner of it before I even turn to look.

Then I turn and, and I'm really sorry, Doctor, I can't help myself, I say, "Ugh," before I know I'm saying it.

The creature behind me is very tall, built from top to bottom like a swan's neck in gelatinous pink, with something greenish rippling under the surface. It doesn't have what you'd exactly call a face. Features up there, definitely, but they don't really form themselves into a _face_. Eyelashes like a camel. Like I said; 'Ugh'.

It says to Jessica, "What are you doing here?"

Quiet, trying not to be heard, "Is winning prize."

"Oh, you too? So am I, dear, _winning prize_. Language arts, don't you know. For my poetry. Good luck with your little _acceptancing_, hm?" And the swan-neck wriggles on by. I have no idea how it's moving. I'm watching it and I have no idea.

"_What_ did I just 'ugh' out loud and in public?"

Jessica opens her mouth to answer. Draws in breath. Then she gives up and nudges Liam, tagging him in. Even he has to think about it. "Clorelaricrots."

"Looks like a talking tumour…" Realizing what's just left my lips, "That was really nasty, wasn't it?"

"No," Liam assures me. "Just accurate…" Jessica's not talking. She's looking down at her place marker on the table, as if she needs reminded she has a place. Liam puts a hand on her shoulder; "And I tell you what, I'm _in_ that language arts class, and there's no justice if she's won anything."

She looks up to me. There's a whole story here I'm being brought into. "True-yes; _Liam_ poems is to be being better than _hers_."

"Oh, cheers, love…"

"Not means. Only that her am only even studies here because is being little-girl-person to army-man."

After that, there's no talk for a second. Jessica's depressed, Liam doesn't know what to say and by the way, I still don't know what I'm looking for in this room. But it's only a second. And after a second suddenly it's all very clear…

I bet he does this, as well. The Doctor, I mean. And it's a safe bet too; I've just felt my face form the exact expression his does when everything falls into place. I wish none of this had ever happened; now I can't comfort myself by pretending he knows it all.

"I know what's going to be harvested…"

* * *

_The Doctor_

"Explain it to me."

Huffing, not wanting to talk about anything and waste air, the Scholar says, "But you understood."

"Not you. _Him_." Carling. Standing at his conspirator's left shoulder. He stopped tending to me, eventually, after I made it clear I wanted nothing from my captors. "Explain to me how someone who has chosen to teach, and above all chosen to teach in your particular field, can be standing there about to assist in something like this, because I don't understand."

He barely gives me a glance. Just goes on fiddling with pipes and connectors and calibrations. "You have," he says, "no moral high ground here, Doctor."

That is very, very almost true.

I suppose I should probably explain, if only to you... Too late now to tell anybody useful. No offence, just that you're not here and you can't do anything, and basically are defining 'not useful' right now. Ignore me. I'm chained to a pipe and I'm on the menu; it's made me just a little grumpy.

A couple of hundred treacherous stairs above us is all the noise and hubbub of the hall. Jessica and Clara are up there. Carling told me. So are a number of other students. They each believe they are there by the merits of their work. This is not strictly true.

You see, there is a substance, an element. I don't know when you're reading from, whether or not your race will have discovered it yet. The humans got there round about four-thousand-and-something. They call it 'nihilium', from the Latin for 'nothing'. And yes, Latin lasts that long. It was discovered as a result of extensive experiments on the dead and dying, solving one of the lingering mysteries of the species. You see, at the moment of death, every human being loses exactly twenty-one grams in weight.

Which isn't going to get you cheers at your next Fat Friends meeting, but a loss is a loss.

Twenty-one grams, as it turned out, is the exact amount of nihilium their bodies contain. It gathers at the centre of the brain, all alive and electric with neurons and synapses. Everything you ever think, everything you ever know, everything you feel and love and cry for and scream at, everything that terrifies you and gladdens your heart until it could burst and makes you feel wonderful or awful and everything in between, that all goes through your nihilium core.

Nihilium knows everything about you. That's what vanishes when one of you dies. The soul. Even your most cynical scientists will come to refer to nihilium as the fabric of the soul. And for your information, twenty-one grams is an incredibly high soul content. The highest, by a country mile, found in any analysed species. Sontarans only have two, Silurians is, I think, twelve. Pordinals have… Oh, I don't know. I had to learn them all once, for an exam, ironically, but I forget now. Just know that twenty-one is high.

So, if you were from a planet where the atmosphere had always contained nihilium, if it was as natural to you as oxygen to the living creatures of the earth, and you were running out of it, humans would be a very good source.

That's what's being harvested here tonight. The pre-death excision of nihilium stores from the unwitting students above. Students are good for it. They're all full of light and learning and love. They feel everything so very acutely. Nothing has faded from them, nothing has been taken away. They have everything to give.

They'll survive the process. It will be painless. They will have no idea that anything has happened to them. But their friends and families will. They'll see the hollowness, the sudden removal of all personal taste and proclivity. Look into the eyes and see nothing through those cliché windows.

And the Scholar will have air rich enough to breathe for… what? Two years, at a push? Maybe not even that; not all of the winners up there are human.

For instance, I heard them talking about an 'idiot girl', a Candarun. You'd know one if you saw them; long creatures, shimmery looking, tend to be a bit slimy. Anyway, there's one up there with a farther high up in the army. She's been invited along too.

That struck me as a little strange, at first. Candaruns are right down there with Sontarans, two-or-three grams on a good day.

Then I remembered what Clara heard, right at the very first. Carling and the Scholar, talking about prices going up, talking about me.

Then I looked up; the gold in the hourglass at the ceiling, coming down through all those pipes, turning into single, perfect droplets of gold in a flask.

And Carling says I have no moral high ground.

"You are a teacher," I tell him right back, "who is nonetheless content to strip the students in his care of everything that makes them real and alive. You then intend to distil that substance, if I don't miss my guess, in order to concentrate the useful knowledge and information that survives the process. Which you then intend to sell. Black market? Or do you have buyers lined up already? Soul removals to order, is it?"

That stops him. He didn't think I knew that. If the whole thing didn't make me so very bloody angry I might be enjoying that feeling. As things stand, Carling has no reply, and I'm glad he doesn't fumble about for one. That would probably aggravate me even more.

"And you say I have no moral high ground. I could get away with some considerable naughtiness before I lost my high ground to you."

Then, like bad people will when the person talking sense is chained down and can't do anything about it, he ignores me. There's a little monitor next to the apparatus on the desk and he looks back to it. Then he panics. Cries to his Scholar and only to his Scholar, "The girl. Where did she go?"

"Who?" I call, feeling left out, "The idiot Candarun army brat?"

"Please," he spits. "That's a trifle. Now your Miss Apple… A different matter altogether."


	20. Chapter 20

"The Candarun is worth a few thousand on a good day," Carling tells me. "But Miss Apple has been in the Tardis, and known you, and known so many other things. Confused and chaotic the mind may be, but what comes out of it will be worth millions."

"If you can find her," I shrug. "You couldn't before. Good thing I showed up when I did, eh?"

The Scholar nudges Carling. Then, and only then, does he come to a very obvious realization. He stops desperately scrutinizing the monitor for any sign of a Jessica who is not there and straightens up. Looks slowly round at me. Comes over in long, gentle strides. He's changing his expression again, softening everything, smiling. His voice becomes soothing and calm again. "A good thing," he echoes. "Yes, a very good thing. You found her. With, I believe, a sonic screwdriver. How foolish of me to have forgotten that. Only think what you could have done if you'd gotten it out of your pocket. Of course, you couldn't, not with you hands tied. No harm, no foul." He's reached me now, and crouches to where I'm chained. In a very embarrassed, abashed sort of way, he reaches into my jacket and removes the sonic.

"Standard psychic interface," I tell him. "Think what you want it to do and then point it. It might be a bit slow at first; it doesn't know you."

He mumbles, too distracted to really mean it, "You're being very helpful."

"Well, I don't want to be unkind. After all, you're not all there, are you, Dooblevay?" There's nothing. Aboslutely nothing to betray that I've touched a nerve. But that's enough in itself. People react. Whatever you say, however innocuous and stupid it might be, there are reactions. But when it all just… _stops_. That's enough. "How long ago did you fall for that trick? The great sacrifice; giving up your humanity to keep another creature breathing. It's not all it's cracked up to be, is it? You're lucky; it doesn't hurt you. You don't feel it anymore. And when that thing had sucked you dry, you had no conscience left, no compunction. You've been feeding it, haven't you? The occasional big proper harvest in the lean years."

Somewhere in the back of all this, the Scholar is silently shaking, choking something that could be laughter or a death rattle. It knows what it is, what it's done. Dooblevay Carling, the one in front of me, is a shell. Sometimes he does a very good job of pretending to be what he once was. He'll adjust his cuffs and his spectacles and stammer all the day and night. But it's an act. None of that's there, not really. It was all breathed in to the Scholar a long time ago, and breathed out spent and useless.

"Stop," he says.

But he can't make the sonic do what he wants. He can't concentrate, can't focus his mind on it, so it won't work. Because there's still a nerve there to touch, and I'm there. "I wish you could feel it," I tell him. "Just for a second. Just feel all the pain and guilt and the loss, just for a second. I wish you could."

His only reply, "That's all behind me now."

He turns his back. Apparently not looking at me is the same as never hearing me at all. The pleasures of soullessness. "I feel like I should tell you, should you somehow succeed tonight, I'm not entirely sure what I'll do in retaliation. That's not even a threat, really, it's just a heads-up. I have no idea."

"Should I somehow succeed tonight-" and there's a tone of jubilation on the end as the sonic starts to respond to him, "-you won't be in any position to do anything. You won't even want to." Absently, he keeps talking as the sonic flashes, slowly, guiding him away across the stone floor. "How would you like that? It's freedom. Everything stops mattering, Doctor."

"No, thank you."

"You're not tempted, not in the slightest?"

Lord in heaven, I drank _tea_ from this man. I mean, _urgh_. "No."

"But what about all the pain and the guilt and the loss? That didn't sound like something off the cuff, old sport. That sounded a lot like bitter experience."

"True. But much as the pain and the guilt and the loss might feel sometimes as though they're driving me mad, I look at you and I know they're the only thing that keeps me sane, sometimes."

He can't form enough of an opinion even to deride foolish sentiment. He just shrugs, "Suit yourself."

So I give up on Carling for the moment. I look instead to the Scholar, asking myself if his race had any nihilium soul of their own to appeal to, wishing I'd done better on that exam all those centuries ago. "Is this what you do to all your friends?" I ask it. It does not deign to answer, or maybe just to waste the air. It trembles again, and I still can't decide if it's laughter or a soul-deprived seizure. "You, sir, are a leech. No more than that. A shuddering parasite feeding off the underside of what is otherwise a proud institution. And yes, I will continue to insult you until you answer me." But then, like birds of a feather, his hollow mate starts beating the sonic against the palm of his hand, and I'm the one who's insulted. "Before you even open your mouth, that screwdriver is in perfect working order."

"Unless your little friend is clinging to the ceiling, I beg to differ."

Clinging to the ceiling? No, no, no. That would be silly. How could Jessica be clinging to that slippery stone ceiling, way up there. But there's nothing wrong with the sonic. Just because he found himself pointing it up at the giant half-hour glass over the Scholar's long table does not mean there's something wrong with the sonic. Clinging to the ceiling? Don't be so utterly ridiculous.

No, she's coming _through_ it.

"The highest point of the ceiling, I think you'll find. This cavern was carved away from its former home, yes? So it follows that the ceiling up there isn't terribly thick. The nihilium harvest tells me this too; a very volatile element. Small enough, yes, in gaseous form, that it could be sucked down through stone with the proper equipment, but not through very much stone. So she's had to do what? Rip up a couple of floorboards, maybe, stick one of those pointy stakes of hers down into a crack in the rock. They're damned strong, you know, those stakes. Brittle too. Snap one off, maybe? Then just stamp it into the ground like a chisel until-"

Until suddenly the enormous funnel rattles as the first debris starts to fall into it. The Scholar makes a noise like a hoarse, high-pitched scream. Carling sinks, like if there was shock left in him this is it.

Oh, I'm awfully clever to have figured that out. Go on. Tell me how clever I am. Let me bask in it for a moment, and then I'll tell you the truth.

Truth is, I didn't figure out very much at all. Jessica told me. The pipe between my wrists started to vibrate a while ago. I've got a direct line to the surface. She was Morsing at military speed, so I didn't get all of it, but I was able to discern, 'Jessica distracts'.

And, well, yes, she is rather distracting when she and a slew of broken stones drop into the funnel. Whatever it's made of, it holds. She is trapped up there, staring down at Carling and the Scholar, in the hourglass full of golden light and human intelligence. Distracting. Distracting for the Scholar, who begins, weak and anxious, to gather his flasks of liquid existence as if he intends to take them and run. Distracting for Carling, who sees an opportunity and shouts to it, "No! Take her now, take her now!". She's worth millions, after all. He charges to the workbench, thoughtlessly, _callously_ dropping my sonic in the process.

Distracting for me, quietly asking myself where she got that flower in her hair and why it disturbs me so. Then reality sinks in, and I'm about to shout. If I can do nothing more concrete, I can at least argue for her, I can tell them to stop, I can at least _call out_-

Except a hand is wrapped around my mouth. Lithe, cool, thin hand, very white. And then a little whisper at my ear. "The reason for the distraction was so that nobody would be looking at you, so don't go barking all over the place, okay?" Clara. Clara's whisper. Clara's warmth crouched in the shadow next to me. Clara reluctantly letting go of my face so she can work with both hands and a hairpin at the lock that is keeping me chained.

"No pressure or anything," I whisper back, "But quick as you like."


	21. Chapter 21

While Clara liberates me, I keep both eyes firmly on Jessica.

Objectively, if you were just looking and you didn't understand, you might think there was a sort of beauty to it. Now that the stone ceiling is gone you can see the upper edge of the containment field bubbling over her head. A young lady, plain but pretty, trapped on stones in a clear prison, and all around her the airturns bright and wispy, glowing. Objectively just looking, one might smile. After all, it looks like she's regenerating. But if you know anything about it, you know this is the opposite of that. There's no life going _in_, that's not what's happening here. All of that glow is supposed to be inside her. It doesn't hurt. She doesn't cry, or call out. You only see the effect when she stops beating at the glass. Gives up and sits down on the rubble she brought with her. Slowly, petal by petal, the flower in her hair withers and crumbles away.

The Scholar has relaxed, somewhat. Maybe because it's all in the room now. Already he can breathe a little easier. Reluctantly, he puts the flasks all back in place. He's getting his, and it's only fair that he collect the rest for Carling.

They'd make a good study, if one were so inclined. A symbiosis of mutual parasites. If you could get them locked up in a lab situation and watch them tear each other apart, not that I'm angry, these are purely objective thoughts, these aren't the dark sort of thoughts that occur when I'm angry, they'd make a good study.

Then the chains fall away, and Clara plants a hand between my shoulders, shoving me forward to do something about it.

This. This is better. Not graceful, given I've been sitting flat all day and there's a dead-legged, stiff-backed, sore-armed lollop to it all, but better. This is much, much better, to be staggering across the floor, scooping up the poor, abused sonic. I have to tell it I'm sorry before it finds its accustomed spot in my palm, before it regains any warmth at all. And even now, it doesn't want to be friends anymore. I point up into the apparatus, which I know now to be a nihilium vacuum with a sublimed diamond trap but 'apparatus' is just easier, but nothing happens.

The drain does not stop. Jessica does not regain any hope, or fight, or understanding. Filtering down through the collapsed stone, the first droplets are starting to run into the distillation tubes.

I'm aware, too, that I ought to have been tackled to the ground by now. After all, I'm costing him millions here. But Carling has made no move to stop me either. Now he stands quietly at my shoulder and says, "Nihilium is too fine an element for sonic technology to sustain any effect on. Keep it up, though, you might be speeding up the liquefaction process." And then he laughs at how quickly I put the sonic away again.

"Clara," I call over my shoulder, "Be a dear, would you, do a little favour?"

"What?"

"Run? Run very, very far away from here?"

"All those stairs again? In these shoes? No, I'm alright as I am, thanks." I love her voice, getting closer behind me as she goes on. I love her footsteps getting closer behind me. I love all of Clara getting closer, and her silly insubordination, and her ridiculous loyalty, and her absolute lack of respect for her own safety in favour of standing by me in the danger.

I still tell her, "Go."

"No."

I lift up _one_ finger, indicating to Carling that I need just _one_ little minute with her, and then I turn. Clara turns too. I put my arm around her shoulders and quietly, as privately as we can, "If they get me too, I need you to take the Tardis home. Just tell her what you need, she knows what to do. And don't be afraid of her, she doesn't hate you."

"She does."

"Don't make me lock the two of you in a room together."

There's just a touch of a smile on her face. For a moment, it almost looks as though she might go, and might do the sensible thing. It looks like she might take herself out of harm's way, and her pretty mind will be in no danger of being sold to the highest bidder just because she once had the awful misfortune to have known me.

Then the Scholar coughs. There's a high-pitched whine beneath it, a cry of pain and rage and fear. When we look round, it is pointing up, into the bottom of the funnel. Doesn't look like much is happening, really. The rubble has shifted a little. There's a tiny little piece of it rattling in a bend of the pipe, but that's all. Hardly going to do a lot of damage, really, when you look at it. It's just overreacting. After all, this was supposed to be the night of its great harvest, and it's collapsing, like a bottle crumpling it on itself when you suck all the air out of…

Oh.

_Oh_.

Oh-ho-ho, yes. Yes. Yes, please, clever Doctor, bloody wonderful, what a moment. Clever old Doctor.

Up there above our heads, a carefully calibrated vacuum operating at just the right strength to draw the nihilium out of Jessica or any other candidate without drawing anything else, and to drag it down into the pipes. And once you know that, well, it's only a couple of tiny little steps to the plan, isn't it?

"You don't get a drop out of that girl," I tell Carling. I'm taking the sonic back out again, too, but that's not as stupid as it sounds. This time, I'm not trying to stop the vacuum or the extraction. All I'm doing is unfastening a couple of the little brass screws in that antiquated equipment. You can't even hear them rattling out of place. Then they fall tinkling down through the clear pipes and the Scholar gives another cry.

It retreats from the table, scuttling, scrabbling steps, back into the shadows at the base of the wall. Good thing too; everybody needs to step back. Those screws were holding a bracket in place. That bracket was holding the top of the curling pipes in place. And now that that bracket is gone, despite every other prop and holder, it all starts to lean rather precariously.

I reach out with a fingertip and tip the balance. Then I run out of the way as it all comes crashing down, folding myself around Clara. Her scream of fear is no fun, but at least there's no pain in it. Amongst all the incredible noise of shattering, of the brilliant, lethal fragments showering down across the entire cavern, there's a very faint whisper of freedom, and escape; every little trace that still lingered in those tubes has been released now.

There at the very top, the vacuum pump is still functioning, dragging wisps of gold down out of the funnel, and a few more lumps of broken gravel too.

The silent aftermath passes. All at once, Carling and I both start to move. He's closer than me, and doesn't have to extract himself from around a shaking companion, so he's a little faster. He gathers any intact flasks from the bench and makes a run for the stairs.

He gets away, too. How can I stop him? I've got more on my mind.

I'm glad the flasks are gone anyway; it clears a space for me to stand up on top of the table. From there, I jump up and grab hold of one of the empty props. It can just about hold my weight, swaying slightly. With my other hand I grab off my tie, and then stretch.

The opening of the flask seems impossibly far away. Funny the things you can do when it's important. I stretch, and stretch, and because it's important, I can stuff that little gap full of silk, pushing harder and harder until it's entirely blocked, until not a scrap of anything could pass it. Now, don't get me wrong, I know nihilium is fine enough to pass through even stone. But the rest of the stuff that makes up an atmosphere isn't. And the vacuum is pulling on all that too.

Do you know what happens if you create a vacuum inside a sealed space?

Inside, Jessica shifts over to the side. She looks down at me. The dead stalk of the flower sticks out of her hair. There's nothing. Absolutely nothing. She looks at me with something like boredom, or the curiosity of a child who has lived through war and trauma already. She feels nothing about all of this, only wonders vaguely why she allowed herself to be trapped here like this, no longer understanding the loyalty and affection than led her to it.

Then she starts to suffocate.

Because it's important, I can stretch even further, and press my hand to the glass. Whatever humanity is left to her reaches out and presses back, and looks at me with anger and hate when I tell her, "I'm sorry."


	22. Chapter 22

"Doctor?"

"Not now, Clara! Get into the bottom of the stairwell, it'll shelter you."

"Doctor, she can't breathe."

"And you won't be breathing either if you don't get out of the way."

Determined to get her point across she stands squarely in front of me so that I run straight into her, so that I bounce off. I bounce far enough back for her to look me in the eye and shout, "She can't breathe and that _thing_ can!" She points over my shoulder. Reluctantly, I look.

The Scholar's getting on a bit better, since all the distillation equipment was taken out of the way. A rush of nihilium, a complete waste of material that could have sustained him for maybe years, has gone straight to its head. Back on its feet, up out of its corner. Looking strong for the first time since I've met it. It moves in a sort of crawl, long powerful arms extending out of its stolen suit of rags, clacking back into place after all that time hunched up. The black skin has a new lustre. The eyes are alight.

It is in something of a rage. I can tell this because it has voice now, and it is howling. Not at me, you understand, not really. It can't see as far as me. It is only crawling up over the workbench, looking to the ceiling. Such an intelligent creature but now, blinded with vicious anger and the ecstasy of freely breathing again, it's too stupid to see what's about to happen.

I reach behind me and shove Clara. "Into the stairwell! Get around the corner now!"

This time I think she knows better than to argue. She runs. Tries to pull me with her, but she runs, and I let her. Where she had a handful of my sleeve I let it slide away, and hear her shout for me. I hope she's not watching. If she's watching she'll see me walking in the other direction. Don't be fooled; I want to run to shelter as much as I want her to run to shelter. But the Scholar has pushed out all its crackling, wasted limbs, moving like an enormous spider, climbing the struts towards the hourglass.

I try to watch the creature and not its objective. Its objective looks far too much like Jessica falling sideways from her knees, holding her throat, blue-lipped. She can't even choke; there is no sound, and nothing to choke on.

And the Scholar is stretching, reaching for the plug in the base of the glass. It's wondering why it can't reach, when I was able to reach and it has so much more in the way of extremity. But it was important that I reach. I wasn't thinking of myself. I get it by the trouser cuff and drag it an extra couple of feet back. It's no good. The rush of nihilium, of existence, has left it beyond the reach of a force like me. Instead I use the sonic to drop the strut out from under it. It crashes back to the workbench and turns on me instead.

In a half-second I'm pinned. Somewhere Clare screams. I don't so much hear her as I feel it in my chest, and it hurts. That hurts.

And then it stops hurting. Something vague and bright is escaping me. It is being drawn directly to the Scholar. Clara's fear stops hurting.

But only for a millisecond. I fight. I keep her in my head. I think of nothing else. Clara screaming, and how that's not something I can stand for. Jessica suffocating, and even though I initiated that it's not something I can stand for. I will _feel_ if anything happens to them. I refuse to have that taken from me. I fight. I didn't know it was possible to fight this process until now, but the things you can do when it's important, it's incredible. The things you can do, the amazing, world-bending things you can do; you could jump up and down and shatter the planet to pieces beneath your feet when it's important and to _feel_, oh, to feel…. When it's important to keep feeling, you can create such wonderful torments for yourself. I think of nothing but Clara and Jessica. I promise. That's all. I promise. Nothing but them. I reach for no greater tortures than this. I have no need of greater tortures than this.

I'm sure I could fend the Scholar off for hours, though. There are deeper reserves I could draw on yet.

Thankfully, I don't need hours. It's less than a minute, actually. It only _feels_ like forever, but trust me, I'm very good at time and timing things (or hadn't you noticed?) and it's only a minute.

Remember I asked if you knew what happens when you let a vacuum pull on a sealed space? Did you? Or did you look it up somewhere in between or anything useful? When are you coming from? Don't you all google things on your mobiles or ask your wrist-mounted mini-computers or have the app built into your brain chip? Forgive me if this sounds ridiculous, I'm trying to cover a number of technological advances and you might not even have experienced the internet yet. If you haven't, this is all coming and it's all great and you'll really like it and I'll tell you lots of stories. For now, though, do you know what happens if you start up a vacuum in a sealed space.

It leaves no air inside to support the shape. Even a sublimed diamond funnel has no chance of holding.

I see it straining, about to collapse. With physical strength it cannot sap from me, I push away one of the Scholar's pinning arms and roll from under it onto the floor.

I curl under the bench just as the trap above implodes. There are moments of chaos that follow; another lethal rain, tinkling like a chandelier. The sound of Clara's fear again. The stones crashing down from above onto the workbench. The Scholar being hit, and falling, and scattering away across the floor somewhere.

The music of every scrap of soul that had lingered in the glass being released and crying out in joy at its new freedom, like when the pipes came down but more of it, symphonic, beautiful.

A heavier, more solid thump that shakes the table, threatens to come in on top of me. A few splinters, but that's all.

And in the wake of all this, silence.

"Doctor?" comes Clara's voice.

"Fine. You?"

"I… I think so."

I get out from under the table, watch her coming back out at the bottom of the stairs. Her steps are shaky, until she looks up, until she sees me. Then, crushing precious shards underfoot, she comes running to me. I put my arms around her, so she'll know she's safe (safer) and the world is steady beneath her feet (steadier). Only for a moment, though.

Jessica ought to have moved by now. Just a little bit, not the kind of movement you'd sense, but there's so much clear diamond and broken stone on that table she would have moved something. She ought to have moved, and be opening her eyes to see the room still spinning. Ought to have a _thumping_ headache from the oxygen deprivation. None of this, so far as I know, has happened. So I turn around just in case I've missed it.

I turn around with my eyes closed. When I open them, she'll be trying to sit up, looking a little bit sick, everything turned completely inward, absolutely unaware of me and Clara and everything else.

When I open them Jessica is still where she fell, awkwardly bent with a stone beneath one hip and a glassy fragment in the other shoulder. These I remove quickly, one-handedly, while the other hand hovers over her mouth, and feels absolutely nothing. "No-no-no-no-no…" Pushing on her chest, I feel there is still something of a heartbeat. Very weak, very thready. Fading very quickly. "_Damn_ it, where's the nurse when you need him?" But then again I know exactly where he is, where he'll always be, and I know what he'd bloody do to me if Jessica dies today and it's my fault.

He can't, of course. I can't ever see him again. Do I put it past him to find a way? No, no I don't. No fool like an old fool, but I'm not that foolish yet…

I show Clara what I'm doing and pass it over to her. "Keep her heart beating." Then I begin to lean into Jessica. Change my mind and lean back for just a second. "I don't know that you can hear me, but if you can, I'm very sorry about the tuna and onion sandwich, only it was all they would give me down here and I was starving, and-"

"_Doctor_!" Clara snaps.

"Right, yes, get on with it, then." The kiss of life is simple, I think. I've seen people do it before. You know, on TV. Movies. _Very_ occasionally on the floor of the console room, but I was usually doing other things like keeping the rest of us alive. That's another story. So far as I've been able to tell, you pinch the nose, tip the head back, berate yourself for letting your first-aid certificate renewal slip somewhere in the 1950s and breathe.

Once. Twice. Tip the head back a bit more in case you're not doing it right. Three times. Four. Panic. Five. Six. Clara saying softly, "Doctor?" Wish she'd stop saying my name. It sound like a bit of a joke right not. Seven times. Eight. Damn. Damn it. Nine.

Blessedly, the body between us buckles, and Jessica rolls coughing onto her side. My knees buckle too, but you're probably neither surprised nor interested right now. Still coughing, eyes still shut, one of her hands is grabbing across the table, only picking up sharp glass and rough stone. Looking for something else. I give her mine, and try to be comforting and not to shake any more than strictly necessary.

Clara is laughing. Don't hold it against her. It's nerves and adrenaline and relief.

It just means she's not paying much attention to the rest of the room. Behind me, for instance, there are scuttling steps she doesn't hear. There's heavy, rasping breathing, but not the laboured sort that came before. No, now the Scholar is just heaving. Because everything it needs, everything it has worked for and kept up all these years, is lying collapsed, littering the floor. I did that.

Not that foolish yet. Not so foolish as to believe we're finished, just yet.


	23. Chapter 23

Clara doesn't see it. She's teasing the dead stalk of the rose out of Jessica's hair, of all things. Humans do that. I won't say that out loud for fear of offending either of them, but you're not here and can't do anything about it; that is a thing that humans do. They latch on to these tiny, silly little things and they can see nothing but. It's how you deal with trauma, as a race. I was in a city once, on the old Earth where you all evolved out of soup, at a time in history when you'd destroyed your internal economy (this being before there was a galactic economy) and they were erecting a giant work of public art (which looked to all the world like a golf ball) next to a derelict hospital that probably could have put the money to good use. Only the humans. Out of all the races, I'm not kidding, only the humans.

Know what Time Lords do? We _talk_, oh God, how we talk when we don't know what to do.

I can feel it coming. The Scholar is slipping up out of the dark, probably ready to tear the back of my head off tooth and claw. I have Clara and Jessica in front of me. The only one of us with a chance of being a useful defence against an angry, attacking creature is incapacitated, and because one of us is incapacitated, the usual command of 'Run' isn't going to work.

For someone so intelligent, it's amazing how quickly I run out of options.

It's right there. Rearing up behind me. Taller than me, now that it's unfolded. Bigger all over, stretching its spindly limbs. I can feel its breath.

Jessica sees it. Her breathing had been settling. Now it catches and a vicious dark stake fires out of her near arm. That happens when she's scared; an adrenaline reaction. What shouldn't happen is that even in her weakness she starts to sit up from the table, struggling towards me.

I can't tell you how it gladdens me; to see empathy and righteous anger and loyalty and friendship all creeping back into her.

She can't fight now. I don't want her to. I don't want that to get mixed up in whatever she's trying so hard to regain.

I tell her, "No". Grip the stake in one hand. Push her back to the bench with the other. The stake snaps off and she flinches. "Sorry, love. But it's about time I did some of my own saving." All brave and strong like that. You have to sound brave and strong when someone wants to fight for you, it's how you convince them to stay down. Then, if you're smart, you look at your more mobile companion and say sternly, "Clara, go and get help." If you're scared, you add, "Lots of help."

For once, there's no talk about it. Clara turns on her heel and runs. And that's too much for the Scholar to take. A black arm fires past me, clawing uselessly towards her back. It's angry, not thinking straight. Thinks it's more powerful than it really is. That is the only good news that I have about the Scholar.

I hold the stake overhand, like a sword. Where it broke it bleeds a fine clear sap that clings and forms to the shape of my hand. It knows me. That's the best news I have about my weapon.

Sooner or later I'm going to have to turn. I follow Jessica's gaze over my other shoulder, and from the flare of them gather that something scary is happening. So I spin and bring up my blade, just in time to block the arm that was about to knock my head flying clean across the cave. "Don't do that," I say, turning the parry to a lunge, trying to drive it back a step or two. "No, don't do that. I mean, I know I'm no fresh-faced youth these days, but couldn't I still pass for an eighth regeneration?" The Scholar roars and takes another swipe at me, so obviously not. "Alright, ninth then. Fact is, I wouldn't go just killing me, matey-boy. I've got _loads_ of soul. Tonnes. More soul than I know what to do with." I get a _bloody_ good strike at its left shoulder. The Scholar dodges, but that doesn't stop the strike from being good. It turned out of the path and I am, therefore, succeeding in getting it away from the defenceless girl still recovering her soul and lungs. "So I'd have a think, if I were you, about just going right on ahead and murdering me, because it's not a good idea. I'll get very angry if you murder me."

I just have to keep it busy until Clara gets back with help. Big help. Cavalry. Lots of big strong help to come and be big and strong and help. Won't be long now. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.

The Scholar lowers one gangly forearm to the floor and sweeps, throwing up a wave of stone and shatter, lethal debris raining on me. Instinctively, my arm comes up to protect my eyes. But it changes my grip on the blade and it blinds me. I stagger but don't know where I'm staggering to.

When I lower my arm again I see. I believe I have been driven to those far reaches of the cave the Scholar was hiding in before. Carling described it as an 'air pocket'. The rainy-day stash, remember?

I stop fighting. On my guard still, not taking my eyes from the creature, but I stop fighting.

There are people here. Or they used to be people. I'm not sure what you'd call them now. 'Desiccated' might be the word. They are the remains of former people, as black and shrivelled as the Scholar itself, all sorts of races, like what emerges when a mummy is unwrapped. They are standing in a line around the wall of this small, circular antechamber. It's rather crowded. One does rather feel that they're bearing down on one.

For the first time in many hours, there is a stab of that pity I felt initially for the Scholar; this is what it has been driven to. It's been leeching the nihilium from a cellular level out of these bodies for who knows how long, changing them over as they become depleted. Cheap batteries, that give little sustenance. Who were they? Maybe once they were the scientists that built the space station around us. Swapped out one by one for unfortunate staff, carefully chosen students, visitors who wouldn't be missed, maintenance…. I don't know. I don't know that anyone will ever know.

That's good, isn't it? That I feel pity instead of rage, instead of rising bile, instead of my fingers adjusting around the hilt end of the stake, an underhand grip instead of overhand, wanting to drive home once and for all and not have to fight anymore, oh, wait, no, I'm feeling all that too, never mind. Never mind.

"When there will be no more of you," the Scholar says, finally regaining enough sickening composure to smile, "and you yourself can be no more of you, Doctor, you too will find that desperate measures come to seem somehow less desperate. Love them now. Worship them now. Soon enough they will be as ants. This is survival. This is the way of all forgotten revenants. You may fear the day you turn into what I am. Fear won't help you."

I shake my head. Of course I bloody do. "Won't happen." That's all I can say. Two words. Two words that don't even form a grammatically correct sentence. Oh, Time Lord, where now is thy eloquence? Well, I told you. We talk when we don't know what to do. It's how we process things, how we think about them. And I can make sweeping generalizations like that because I know for a fact that all Time Lords do that. But I'm not thinking anymore. I'm not doing anything anymore. I only have two words. We talk when we're lost. And silence?

I imagine there was silence as we all were locked away forever.

There is silence when there's nothing we _can_ do. There's silence when we are afraid.

Silence is weakness; the Scholar rushes me, backing me into the wall behind. Its long, clickety fingers around my throat. I suppose it was my turn not to breathe. It's the same as when it pinned me. It wants my soul. It wasn't what I am. I told you before I can fend it off. I can hold on to everything that makes me real through the pain and the joy of it. I could think about custard, or texting, or a soufflé, or scones, or a penny hitting the floor or a flower that shone and shines somewhere still and another sort of doctor and ginger people and people turned into paving slabs and people magically appearing in the Oval Office and I could think about everything I've ever lived and loved and lost and all the world, I've done it before, I could do it again, I could cling to it all, hold on for dear life and refuse to be torn away.

I don't. Not immediately. A second's hesitation could be, quite literally, fatal; it could leave me hanging blackening on these walls until all of that is gone from me. And yet I hesitate. Gone from me. I hesitate. Can't breathe; it'll get me anyway, won't it, when I pass out…

The moment is broken by a very odd noise. Somewhere between a clunk and a thumphf, and with a hard sort of clack on the end. Not inches from my face, the Scholar's glittering black eyes swim and go dull. It loses its grip on me, staggers back and falls. I drop from the wall.

Jessica is hanging on the entrance to this little sideroom, heaving. Her feet are bare. One of the heels Clara forced her to master is on the floor where the Scholar fell. The other is in her hand in case it gets uppity again.

Everything I hesitated for comes very quickly to the boil. I remember the stake in my hand and before I quite know I'm moving, the tip finds itself pressed up under the creature's chin.

"No!" Jessica cries. Fades out coughing, trying to add, "Doctor not does."

Trying to explain, "It's going to happen anyway. As soon as it stops harvesting, it'll die. It kills itself by failing to kill."

Hoarsely, "Jus… justi…. Justice Department is to be dess-syding."

"They can't. Take it away from here and it'll die anyway. It is condemned, Jessica, don't you understand that? There's no way for it to live. No harm no foul."

"Harm," she says, nodding. "_Harm_." I'm not looking at her, only at the Scholar at the end of the blade. I don't mind if it has to hear the argument, has to wait for it. That doesn't bother me in the slightest. I don't like the steps that approach, though. Heavy while she hasn't the strength to be light on her feet. Jessica doesn't want to walk, doesn't want to even try it, but she does it anyway. I offer my free arm. She doesn't lean on it. Instead, her hand takes mine. Something light and very soft falls between our palms. Her other hand reaches across and lowers my sword arm.

Looking down, I see what she just handed me. Rose petals. From the one in her hair, the one that died when the life was being sucked out of her. As Jessica has been restored, so have they; they are full and bright and sunny yellow again, like nothing ever happened.

Oh no. No, it can't be. It can't be so simple as flowers.

Just then, from the main cavern, lots and lots of big strong footsteps, coming to help. Clara's come with all sorts of cavalry. Before they can come in here and find us, I had the stake to Jessica to use as a crutch. Drop the petals down on top of the Scholar.

"She spared your life," I tell it. "Not me. The empathy you would have taken from her spared your life."

I leave Jessica watching over it, under strict instructions to throw that other shoe if it tries anything, and go to explain to the assembled help what I'm going to need, how this must be dealt with. Only takes a couple of minutes. It's all very simple, once you realize that flowers don't die the moment they're picked.

When I've explained and they all go about it, Clara comes to me. "What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."

I'm not sure what to say to that. I want to say 'Not yet', but I'm afraid she might know what I mean. Instead I find a smile, out of all those deep reserves of mine, and tell her, "I'm fine. Absolutely fine, tickety-boo, never better, loving it, having it _large_… that last one's a bit before your time, isn't it?"

"Bit dated."

"I apologize."

"Showing your age," she laughs. I laugh back so she won't think I'm hurt.


	24. Chapter 24

Evidently, they've got a greenhouse on this station somewhere. When I am no longer necessary below, and lots of big burly types have taken possession of the Scholar, I take Jessica upstairs to breathe fresh a… well, a generated atmosphere. A lot better than the deathly smog of our enemy's nihilium farm at any rate. The stairs are a chore. Really, somebody ought to have a stern word with the people who gave her that skeleton; if not for that I could carry her.

All the while, we're having to press against the wall, out of the way of the people coming and going past us. The ones I instructed before. Every one of them carrying great bouquets of flowers. I can't help myself muttering, "Can't _believe_ nobody thought of checking out plants when that element was discovered. They evolve sentience, you know, trees do. Flowers too, somewhere, probably. I met a big flower once that wanted to eat River. She was unconscious at the time. I carried her, as I recall. And there was another me and I jumped off a cliff and… This is the story I tell to Jessica to make that long, spirally, head-turning trip back up to light seem less arduous. I'm not entirely sure it works, or if she's even able to listen.

Wish Clara was here. She ran on ahead. Said she wanted to see how things were upstairs. Clara would have responded to the story, asked questions I was about to come on to anyway, made little noises of derision when she didn't believe me even though I only ever speak the truth and whole truth. Clara would have been amusing, and everything would have felt a little bit less…

Scary, I suppose. The idea of the Scholar below, living and breathing, surrounded by flowers, to be guided out in a haze of flowers, the flowers withering with every second in proximity. It could have been so much happier all this time and how many people suffered simply for want of a daisy or two. How easily solved it was. It could have been dead. And I don't just mean its suffocation, I mean it could have quite easily been dead. It's not the only one either.

"So anyway, it followed us all off the cliff on its roots, fell into the salt water and thrashed itself a bloody tsunami in its dying throes but if you think that was the end of, you'd be Jessica, I'm very sorry you couldn't breathe."

For the longest time she doesn't respond. It's nerve-wracking, when it could be hate, when forgiveness could be reluctant, when maybe she's trying to decide what to say. But when she finally reacts it's with a confused, sudden lift of her head. This is what happens when you change topics in the middle of a sentence. Even if you can't help yourself, it might take someone a little while to figure out what just happened.

"Breathes _now_," she says. Clearly she finds my question utterly ridiculous. "Not harms is no foul. Am being right in phrase, Doctor?"

"Close enough."

"Doctor does right, and wins, and saves. Not to be having any worry for her. Tells more flower story now."

"…I mostly just can't believe nobody thought to even test flowers. Did nobody get bored in the laboratories, even? When they discovered the Jikiri Panacea, that's how that happened."

"What am being… _that thing_?"

"Oops…"

The top of the stairs, while a most welcome sight to me, puts Jessica off a little bit. She turns her eyes away as we come up through the floor. Maybe something to do with the great big hole in the floor off to the left that came down into the hourglass. "What's the matter?"

"Is bad damage. Doctor not tells Jessica does. Professor-persons is not to be letting her returns."

On the one hand, it is definitely big damage. It might even be structural damage, requiring major work to repair. On the other, people could have been seriously injured tonight, and worse than that again, so I can't see them holding it against her. I'd tell her so, but skirting it brings us out from under the stage and I rather have my breath stolen by what's going on up there.

Naturally there was a stampede for the doors after all the crashes and explosions and implosions and such below. The once beautiful hall is in disarray, table cloths dragged away, streamers pulled down from the walls, abandoned in the midst of revelry. That's usually a very sad and lonely sight. There is, however, a rather charming centrepiece to it all that I am only too happy to relate to you in detail.

Professor Carling, when he ran from me, did not escape. He was apprehended, here, in this room. He has been kept here too, awaiting judgement and apprehension by greater authorities than mine. Just so you can visualize it, he's being held down across one of those lovely round tables, amongst the forgotten half-glasses and scattered place-holders. He can go absolutely nowhere and, it would seem, has given up even struggling.

This is because another professor is sitting on him. The big lilac fella from physical education. You remember. The Grumpy Keeper Of The Sacred Sandbags. The big one, you remember. Yes. He's sitting on top of skinny, wicked Professor Carling.

In light of recent events, it should not gladden my heart so very deeply to see a soulless academic struggling to breathe. My heart doesn't know this. My heart goes right on ahead and gets gladdened very deeply.

Young Liam is standing next to this table. He is pointing at Carling, grinning from ear to ear. He looks at Jessica and myself with a child's glee and boasts, "I tackled him! He was running and I tackled him. I've never tackled anybody in my _life_."

"Don't make a habit of it," I tell him. "It's murder on the knees."

Softly, just to me, "Liam was very fast to be teaching Clara how picks locks, so Clara and Jessica could be saving Doctor."

Another wave of flowers goes past us. Jessica reels; growing up without sound left her other senses keen, and I think the scent is overwhelming. Glee and pride fade off Liam faster than mist under the morning sun. He's across to us before I can even start to move her again, taking her other arm. She seems more willing to lean on him. "What happened?"

"Tells him later. Her am sorry too; him was giving her flower and her was breaking it."

"Yeah, not the biggest thing going on right now."

Getting out the doors (once we manage it, through the flower carriers) is blissful. Though by definition of being a space station there is no technical night and day, a standard twelve-hour rotation is carefully observed, so that diurnal and nocturnal students have equal time to work. Currently, we're in a very beautiful, starlit artificial night, cool and clear and with a soft breeze. Jessica just sort of drapes herself off one of the pillars. Looks comfortable. I should get a pillar, where's the next nearest pillar, I want a pillar…

I'm looking for a pillar when my arm is grabbed and I am pulled yelping into a deeper shadow. I turn, only to find Clara. Again. "Will you kindly stop doing that? You're not doing yourself any favours. What if something happens to you? How do you know I'll follow you if you keep dragging me around everywhere? I will always come to you eventually, now just be satisfied with that."

"'Course you will," she breezes. Which is a bit forward of her, like it should be second-nature to me to go traipsing about in her wake like a trained pup, what on earth is she implying? Where does she get off calling me a puppy? Wait, she didn't call me that. I'm overreacting, aren't I? "You know better than to leave me behind. I know too much about you."

That wicked grin of hers. Because it's a joke to her, I try and smile back.

"Anyway," she goes on, "I wanted those two to have a minute."

"What do you mean a minute? I've had minutes. I've been given minutes. I've _given_ lots of minutes. A minute like the kind that you give, that sort of a minute? The minute you could almost spell with a capital letter if you wanted, like a Minute-minute?"

"Oh, you really can pronounce capitals. Can you teach me?"

"Well, it's a very _academic_ thing, you find it in people who do a lot of studying, it becomes a sort of default, really-"

"Are you saying I'm thick?"

"No, I'm doing that thing where I talk about something entirely ridiculous but _in my mind_ something incredible happens…" This time _I_ grab _her _arm and take _her_ with _me_. Back inside. Back to that table in the middle of the room where Carling is being most firmly held down. In the interests of diplomacy, I go first to the front of his lilac captor. "Beg pardon, but would you mind awfully if I very briefly interrogated the prisoner?"

"Do I have to move?" he grunts.

"On the contrary, I'd rather you didn't."

"Fire away."

Just so she'll know how it feels, I drag Clara with me, back to the other side of the table. I drag her with me when I crouch to speak to Carling. The willingness with which she goes along with it makes me feel a little bit bad about complaining, actually. "You," I begin, meaning Carling, "You, you were selling off what you intended to gather tonight. You said Jessica was worth millions. You said that with confidence, with honesty. You must have had buyers, bidders. Who was willing to pay millions to get to me, Professor?"

He is silent, turning his head as far as his position will allow, refusing to answer. "More than my life's worth," he mutters.

"See, this is why you should have hung around. If you'd been downstairs when it all ended then, you'd know; it's not. It's not more than your life's worth. It's really not."

"I'll tell the Department, when they ask, when there's a lawyer."

A lawyer. He's asking for a lawyer. He won't say another word until he's seen a lawyer. "_Not_ good enough!" Carling's captor starts to look over his shoulder again. This time, when Clara pulls me back, it's with more force and better reason. Pulls me away from that table and right out of the room again. On the steps, with her voice hushed so Jessica and Liam won't hear, "What happened in that basement?"

"Nothing to get wound up about."

"You know I'll just ask Jessica."

"She won't tell you."

"Then you tell me, Doctor. What happened that you can't even tell me?"

"Nothing. I'm angry, that's all. There was another room. Full of… they'd been drained, withered alive, it was… Came very close to being one of them. I'm just angry." Lying hurts. It hurts even more when Clara accepts it. Her face folds in on itself, sweetly sad for me. She hugs me, tightly, turning her head against my shoulder. Just to make it stop, I start to make promises. "Clara? Remember when you were at me about excitement and intrigue and fun and how you'd like more of it?"

Both hands up, fending me off, "I'm all full up on excitement, thanks…"

"Oh, alright then…" I turn away from her, shuffle a couple of steps, stick my hands nonchalantly in my pockets. Yes, that's the word. 'Nonchalant'. I am the very picture of nonchalance. "But look, if you're ever stuck again, just bear in mind, somebody out there is trading illegally in other people's souls."

Silence for one, two, three seconds. Then footsteps, rushing back up to walk at my shoulder. "I just meant full up like _tonight_. In the morning, I probably won't be full up anymore."

"No, no, I wouldn't want you glutting. You'll make yourself ill."

"Really. I'm just _satisfied_ right now. Satisfaction never lasts all that long. It won't be long."

We'll probably continue in this vein for a while. Clara and I can keep up a conceit for, oh, _hours_ at a time. It's fun for us, but you wouldn't like it. You'd be bored. Anyway, it's our thing. It's not necessarily for you to listen in on. Luckily for you, I am perfectly capable of keeping up a conceit with Clara whilst simultaneously thinking about something else.

So how to end it, then. How to round it up. How to bring everything full circle and make it neat so you can go away happy, satisfied, all full up…

The simple answer is that I can't. Some things are simple. Here are some simple things. Both Dooblevay Carling and the Scholar, whatever it turns out to be, will be going to prison. Carling's buyers will be very disappointed. The students here are safe. A cancer is to be cut out of the heart of this institution. These are simple things. Other simple things are that we are all still alive, and relatively well. Simple things are happening over by that pillar, when the last of the flowers are being carried inside and something falls from one of the bunches. Not a rose this time. I can't tell in the dark. Violets, maybe. They fall unnoticed. From behind the pillar, one hand picks them up and passes them into another. That's a simple thing. Much as it might fill me with an overwhelming desire to grab the little… _scamp_ by the scruff and issue some very strong warnings what'll happen if anything unnecessary happens to Jessica and… Much as all that, that's a simple thing.

Less simple is the fact that there are parties in the universe who would have paid vast sums to scrape out the inside of a mind that knew me.

That is a danger to me.

It is a danger to people who have known me.

So how to end this? How to round it up? How to bring everything full circle and make it neat so you can go away happy, satisfied, all full up? I can't.

How can I possibly end a thing when you and I both know it isn't over yet?

* * *

[A/N – He could always have tried the words 'The End', but that would be just too simple for him. I can do it, though. The End. There. I hope you've had a blast with this. If you liked it or didn't, please do drop me a line now – what I'm doing right or wrong, what you'd want to see in the future. It's been a while since I wrote a long DW fic, so maybe I've lost my touch? Anything you want to tell me could help me out.

On another note, some of you probably already know that there's an auction this week on Livejournal. This is to raise funds for DashCon next year. You can bid on fiction by me and loads of amazing authors (but also me), and basically commission your own incredible piece of fanfiction to spec! Please, please, please check it out, so DashCon can get great DW guests and events. You'll find it under 'dwcommittee' over at LJ. Please?]


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